Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.
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Title: Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.
Author: Walter Scott
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Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, VOLUME V. ***
LIFE OF NAPOLEON
POCKET EDITION
VOL. V.
LIFE OF
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
VOL. 5.
[Illustration: Hougoumont]
EDINBURGH; A. & C. BLACK,
1876
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAP. LXXV.--Buonaparte marches upon Blucher, who is in possession of
Soissons--Attacks the Place without success--Battle of
Craonne--Blucher Retreats on Laon--Battle of Laon--Napoleon is
compelled to withdraw on the 11th--He attacks Rheims, which is
evacuated by the Russians--Defeat at Bar-sur-Aube of Oudinot and
Gerard, who, with Macdonald, are forced to Retreat towards
Paris--Schwartzenberg wishes to Retreat behind the Aube--but the
Emperor Alexander and Lord Castlereagh opposing the measure, it is
determined to proceed upon Paris--Napoleon occupies Arcis--Battle of
Arcis--Napoleon is joined, in the night after the Battle, by
Macdonald, Oudinot, and Gerard--and Retreats along the Aube, 1
CHAP. LXXVI.--Plans of Buonaparte--Military and Political Questions
regarding Paris--Napoleon crosses the Marne on 22d March--Retrospect
of Events in the Vicinity of Lyons, &c.--Defeats of the French in
various Quarters--Marmont and Mortier Retreat under the walls of
Paris--Joseph Buonaparte--Maria Louisa, with the Civil Authorities,
leave the City--Attack of Paris on the 30th--A Truce accorded--Joseph
flies, 11
CHAP. LXXVII.--State of Parties in Paris--Royalists--Revolutionists--
Buonapartists--Talleyrand--Chateaubriand--Mission to the Allied
Sovereigns--Their Answer--Efforts of the Buonapartists--Feelings of
the Lowest Classes--of the Middling Ranks--Neutrality of the National
Guard--Growing confidence of the Royalists--Proclamations and White
Cockades--Crowds assemble at the Boulevards--The Allies are received
with shouts of welcome--Their Army retires to quarters--and the
Cossacks bivouac in the Champs-Elysées, 28
CHAP. LXXVIII.--Fears of the Parisians--Proceedings of
Napoleon--Operations of the French Cavalry in rear of the
Allies--Capture of Weissemberg--The Emperor Francis is nearly
surprised--Napoleon reaches Troyes on the night of the 29th
March--Opinion of Macdonald as to the possibility of relieving
Paris--Napoleon leaves Troyes, on the 30th and meets Belliard, a few
miles from Paris, in full Retreat--Conversation betwixt them--He
determines to proceed to Paris, but is at length dissuaded--and
Despatches Caulaincourt to receive terms from the Allied
Sovereigns--He himself returns to Fontainbleau, 35
CHAP. LXXIX.--The Allied Sovereigns issue a Proclamation that they
will not treat with Buonaparte--A Provisional Government is named by
the Conservative Senate, who also decree the Forfeiture of
Napoleon--This decree is sanctioned by all the Public Bodies in
Paris--The Legality of these Proceedings discussed--Feelings towards
Napoleon, of the Lower Classes, and of the Military--On 4th April,
Buonaparte issues a document Abdicating the Throne of France--His
subsequent agitation, and wish to continue the War--The deed is
finally dispatched, 40
CHAP. LXXX.--Victor, and other Maréchals give in their adhesion to the
Provisional Government--Marmont enters into a separate Convention; but
assists at the Conferences held at Paris, leaving Souham second in
command of his Army--The Commanders have an Interview with the Emperor
Alexander--Souham enters with his Army into the lines of the Allies;
in consequence, the Allied Sovereigns insist upon the unconditional
Submission of Napoleon--His reluctant acquiescence--The Terms granted
to him--Disapprobation of Lord Castlereagh--General Desertion of
Napoleon--Death of Josephine--Singular Statement made by Baron Fain,
Napoleon's Secretary, of the Emperor's attempt to commit
Suicide--After this he becomes more Resigned--Leaves Fontainbleau,
28th April, 53
CHAP. LXXXI.--Commissioners appointed to escort Napoleon--He leaves
Fontainbleau on the 20th April--His Interview with Augereau at
Valence--Expressions of Popular dislike towards Napoleon in the South
of France--Fears for his Personal safety--His own agitation and
Precautions--He arrives at Frejus, and embarks on board the Undaunted,
with the British and Austrian Commissioners--Arrives at Elba on 4th
May, 66
CHAP. LXXXII.--Elba--Napoleon's mode of Life and occupation
there--Effects of his Residence at Elba upon the adjoining Kingdom of
Italy--He is visited by his Mother and the Princess Pauline--and by a
Polish lady--Sir Niel Campbell the only Commissioner left at
Elba--Napoleon's Conversations on the State of Europe--His pecuniary
Difficulties--and fears of Assassination--Symptoms of some approaching
Crisis--A part of the Old Guard disbanded--Napoleon escapes from
Elba--Fruitless pursuit by Sir Neil Campbell, 72
CHAP. LXXXIII.--Retrospect--Restoration of the Bourbons displeasing to
the Soldiery, but satisfactory to the People--Terms favourable to
France granted by the Allies--Discontent about the manner of conceding
the Charter--Other grounds of Dissatisfaction--Apprehensions lest the
Church and Crown Lands should be resumed--Resuscitation of the Jacobin
Faction--Increased Dissatisfaction in the Army--The Claims of the
Emigrants mooted in the Chamber of Delegates--Maréchal Macdonald's
Proposal--Financial Difficulties--Restriction on the
Press--Reflections on this Subject, 85
CHAP. LXXXIV.--Carnot's Memorial on Public Affairs--Fouché joins the
Jacobins--Projects of that Party; which finally joins the
Buonapartists--Active Intrigues--Congress of Vienna--Murat, alarmed at
its Proceedings, opens an Intercourse with Napoleon--Plans of the
Conspirators--Buonaparte's Escape from Elba--He Lands at Cannes--Is
joined at Grenoble, by 3000 Troops--Halts at Lyons, appoints a
Ministry, and issues several Decrees--Dismay of the
Government--Intrigues of Fouché--Treachery of Ney--Revolt of the Royal
Army at Melun--The King leaves Paris, and Buonaparte arrives
there--His Reception, 108
CHAP. LXXXV.--Various attempts to organise a defence for the Bourbons
fail--Buonaparte, again reinstated on the throne of France, is
desirous of continuing the peace with the Allies--but no answer is
returned to his letters--Treaty of Vienna--Grievances alleged by
Buonaparte in justification of the step he had taken--Debates in the
British House of Commons, on the renewal of War--Murat occupies Rome
with 50,000 men--his proclamation summoning all Italians to arms--He
advances against the Austrians--is repulsed at Occhio-Bello--defeated
at Tolentino--flies to Naples, and thence, in disguise, to
France--where Napoleon refuses to receive him, 134
CHAP. LXXXVI.--Buonaparte's attempts to conciliate Britain--Plot to
carry off Maria Louisa fails--State of feeling in France--The
Army--The Jacobins--The Constitutionalists--Fouché and Siêyes made
Peers--Freedom of the Press granted, and outraged--Independent conduct
of Comté, editor of Le Censeur--Disaffections among the lower
orders--Part of these assemble before the Tuileries, and applaud the
Emperor--Festival of the Federates--New Constitution--It is received
with dissatisfaction--Meeting of the Champ de Mai to ratify
it--Buonaparte's Address to the Chambers of Peers and Deputies--The
spirit of Jacobinism predominant in the latter, 144
CHAP. LXXXVII.--Preparations for War--Positions of the Allied Forces,
amounting in whole to One Million of men--Buonaparte's Force not more
than 200,000--Conscription not ventured upon--National Guard--their
reluctance to serve--Many Provinces hostile to Napoleon--Fouché's
Report makes known the Disaffection--Insurrection in La
Vendée--quelled--Military Resources--Plan of Campaign--Paris placed in
a Complete State of Defence--Frontier Passes and Towns
fortified--Generals who accept Command under Napoleon--He Announces
his Purpose to measure himself with Wellington, 157
CHAP. LXXXVIII.--Army of Wellington covers Brussels--that of Blucher
on the Sambre and Meuse--Napoleon reviews his Grand Army on 14th
June--Advances upon Charleroi--His plan to separate the Armies of the
two opposing Generals fails--Interview of Wellington and Blucher at
Bric--British Army concentrated at Quatre-bras--Napoleon's plan of
attack--Battle of Ligny, and defeat of Blucher on the 16th
June--Action at Quatre-bras on the same day--The British retain
possession of the field--Blucher eludes the French pursuit--Napoleon
joins Ney--Retreat of the British upon Waterloo, 164
CHAP. LXXXIX.--Strength of the two Armies--Plans of their
Generals--THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO commenced on the forenoon of the 18th
June--French attack directed against the British centre--shifted to
their right--Charges of the Cuirassiers--and their reception--Advance
of the Prussians--Ney's charge at the head of the Guards--His
repulse--and Napoleon's orders for retreat--The Victorious Generals
meet at La Belle Alliance--Behaviour of Napoleon during the
engagement--Blucher's pursuit of the French--Loss of the British--of
the French--Napoleon's subsequent attempts to undervalue the military
skill of the Duke of Wellington answered--His unjust censures of
Grouchy--The notion that the British were on the point of losing the
Battle when the Prussians came up, shown to be erroneous, 174
CHAP. XC.--Buonaparte's arrival at Paris--The Chambers assemble, and
adopt Resolutions, indicating a wish for Napoleon's Abdication--Fouché
presents Napoleon's Abdication, which stipulates that his Son shall
succeed him--Carnot's Report to the Peers, of the means of
defence--Contradicted by Ney--Stormy Debate on the Abdication
Act--Both Chambers evade formally recognising Napoleon
II.--Provisional Government--Napoleon at Malmaison--His offer of his
services in defence of Paris rejected--Surveillance of General
Beker--Means provided at Rochefort for his departure to the United
States--He arrives at Rochefort on 3d July--The Provisional Government
attempt in vain to treat with the Allies--The Allies advance to
Paris--Chamber of Peers disperse--Louis XVIII. re-enters Paris on 8th
July, 195
CHAP. XCI.--Disposition of the British Fleet along the Western Coast
of France, in order to prevent Buonaparte's Escape--the Bellerophon
off Rochefort--Orders under which Captain Maitland acted--Plans
agitated for Napoleon's Escape--Savary and Las Cases open a
Negotiation with Captain Maitland--Captain Maitland's Account of what
passed at their Interviews--Las Cases' Account--The Statements
compared--Napoleon's Letter to the Prince Regent--He surrenders
himself on board the Bellerophon, on 15th July--His arrival off
Plymouth--All approach to the Ship prohibited--Final determination of
the English Government that Buonaparte shall be sent to St.
Helena--His Protest, 219
CHAP. XCII.--Napoleon's real view of the measure of sending him to St.
Helena--Allegation that Captain Maitland made terms with
him--disproved--Probability that the insinuation arose with Las
Cases--Scheme of removing Napoleon from the Bellerophon, by citing him
as a witness in a case of libel--Threats of self-destruction--Napoleon
goes on board the Northumberland, which sails for St. Helena--His
behaviour on the voyage--He arrives at St. Helena, 16th October, 234
CHAP. XCIII.--Causes which justify the English Government in the
measure of Napoleon's Banishment--Napoleon's wish to retire to
England, in order that, being near France, he might again interfere in
her affairs--Reasons for withholding from him the title of
Emperor--Sir George Cockburn's Instructions--Temporary Accommodation
at Briars--Napoleon removes to Longwood--Precautions taken for the
safe custody of the Prisoner, 245
CHAP. XCIV.--Buonaparte's alleged grievances considered--Right to
restrict his Liberty--Limits allowed Napoleon--Complaints urged by Las
Cases against Sir George Cockburn--Sir Hudson Lowe appointed Governor
of St. Helena--Information given by General Gourgaud to
Government--Agitation of various Plans for Buonaparte's
Escape--Writers on the subject of Napoleon's Residence at St.
Helena--Napoleon's irritating Treatment of Sir Hudson Lowe--Interviews
between them, 255
CHAP. XCV.--Instructions to Sir Hudson Lowe--Sum allowed for the
Ex-Emperor's Expenses--Napoleon's proposal to defray his own
Expenses--Sale of his Plate--made in order to produce a false
impression: he had at that time a large sum of Money in his
strong-box--Wooden-House constructed in London, and transported to St.
Helena--Interview between Sir H. Lowe and Napoleon--Delays in the
Erection of the House--The Regulation that a British Officer should
attend Napoleon in his Rides--Communication with Europe carried on by
the Inmates of Longwood--Regulation respecting Napoleon's Intercourse
with the Inhabitants of St. Helena--General Reflections on the
Disputes between him and Sir H. Lowe, 279
CHAP. XCVI.--Napoleon's Domestic Habits--Manner in which he spent the
day--His Dress--Nature of the Fragments of Memoirs he dictated to
Gourgaud and Montholon--His admiration of Ossian--He prefers Racine
and Corneille to Voltaire--Dislike of Tacitus--His Vindication of the
Character of Cæsar--His behaviour towards the Persons of his
Household--Amusements and Exercises--His Character of Sir Pulteney
Malcolm--Degree of his Intercourse with the Islanders, and with
Visitors to the Island--Interview with Captain Basil Hall--with Lord
Amherst and the Gentlemen attached to the Chinese Embassy, 297
CHAP. XCVII.--Napoleon's Illness--viz. Cancer in the Stomach--Removal
of Las Cases--Montholon's Complaints brought forward by Lord
Holland--and replied to by Lord Bathurst--Effect of the failure of
Lord Holland's motion--Removal of Dr. O'Meara from his attendance on
Buonaparte--who refuses to permit the visits of any other English
Physician--Two Priests sent to St. Helena at his desire--Dr.
Antommarchi--Continued Disputes with Sir Hudson Lowe--Plans for
Effecting Buonaparte's Escape--Scheme of a Smuggler to approach St.
Helena in a Submarine Vessel--Seizure of the Vessel--Letter expressing
the King of England's interest in the Illness of Napoleon--Consent of
the latter to admit the visits of Dr. Arnott--Napoleon employs himself
in making his Will--and gives other directions connected with his
Decease--Extreme Unction administered to him--HIS DEATH, on 5th May,
1821--Anatomization of the Body--His Funeral, 313
APPENDIX--
No. I.--Remarks on the Campaign of 1815, 353
No. II.--Buonaparte's Protest, 373
No. III.--States of Thermometer, 377
No. IV.--Interview betwixt Napoleon Buonaparte and Henry Ellis, Esq.,
third Commissioner of Lord Amherst's Embassy to China, 377
No. V.--Memorandum of the Establishment at Longwood, 381
No. VI.--Interview between Buonaparte and the Widow of Theobald Wolfe
Tone, 382
No. VII.--Buonaparte's last Will and Testament, 384
CHAPTER LXXV.
_Buonaparte marches upon Blucher, who is in possession of
Soissons--Attacks the place without success--Battle of
Craonne--Blucher retreats on Laon--Battle of Laon--Napoleon is
compelled to withdraw on the 11th--He attacks Rheims, which is
evacuated by the Russians--Defeat at Bar-sur-Aube of Oudinot and
Gerard, who, with Macdonald, are forced to retreat towards
Paris--Schwartzenberg wishes to retreat behind the Aube--but the
Emperor Alexander and Lord Castlereagh opposing the measure, it is
determined to proceed upon Paris--Napoleon occupies Arcis--Battle of
Arcis--Napoleon is joined, in the night after the battle, by
Macdonald, Oudinot, and Gerard--and retreats along the Aube._
The sword was now again brandished, not to be sheathed or reposed, until
the one party or the other should be irretrievably defeated.
The situation of Buonaparte, even after the victory of Montereau, and
capture of Troyes, was most discouraging. If he advanced on the grand
army of the allies which he had in front, there was every likelihood
that they would retire before him, wasting his force in skirmishes,
without a possibility of his being able to force them to a general
action; while, in the meantime, it might be reckoned for certain that
Blucher, master of the Marne, would march upon Paris. On the contrary,
if Napoleon moved with his chief force against Blucher, he had, in like
manner, to apprehend that Schwartzenberg would resume the route upon
Paris by way of the valley of the Seine. Thus, he could make no exertion
upon the one side, without exposing the capital to danger on the other.
After weighing all the disadvantages on either side, Napoleon determined
to turn his arms against Blucher, as most hostile to his person, most
rapid in his movements, and most persevering in his purposes. He left
Oudinot, Macdonald, and Gerard in front of the grand army, in hopes
that, however inferior in numbers, they might be able to impose upon
Schwartzenberg a belief that Napoleon was present in person, and thus
either induce the Austrian to continue his retreat, or at least prevent
him from resuming the offensive. For this purpose the French troops were
to move on Bar-sur-Aube, and occupy, if practicable, the heights in that
neighbourhood. The soldiers were also to use the cry of _Vive
l'Empereur_, as if Napoleon had been present. It was afterwards seen,
that as the maréchals did not command 40,000 men in all, including a
force under Macdonald, it was impossible for them to discharge
effectually the part assigned them. In the meanwhile, Napoleon himself
continued his lateral march on Blucher, supposing it possible for him,
as formerly, to surprise his flank, as the Prussians marched upon Paris.
For this purpose he moved as speedily as possible to La Ferté-Gauchère,
where he arrived 1st March; but Sacken and D'Yorck, who would have been
the first victims of this manœuvre, as their divisions were on the left
bank of the Marne, near to Meaux, crossed the river at La Ferté Jouarre,
and formed a junction with Blucher, who now resolved to fall back on the
troops of Bulow and Winzengerode. These generals were, it will be
remembered, advancing from the frontiers of Belgium.
A sudden hard frost rendered the country passable, which had before been
in so swampy a condition as to render marching very difficult. This was
much to the advantage of the Prussians. Napoleon detached the forces
under Marmont and Mortier, whom he had united with his own, to press
upon and harass the retreat of the Prussian field-maréchal; while he
himself, pushing on by a shorter line, possessed himself of the town of
Fismes, about half way betwixt Rheims and Soissons. The occupation of
this last place was now a matter of the last consequence. If Blucher
should find Soissons open to him, he might cross the Marne, extricate
himself from his pursuers without difficulty, and form his junction with
the army of the North. But if excluded from this town and bridge,
Blucher must have hazarded a battle on the most disadvantageous terms,
having Mortier and Marmont on his front, Napoleon on his left flank, and
in his rear, a town, with a hostile garrison and a deep river.
It was almost a chance, like that of the dice, which party possessed
this important place. The Russians had taken it on 15th February;[1]
but, being immediately evacuated by them, it was on the 19th occupied by
Mortier, and garrisoned by 500 Poles, who were imagined capable of the
most determined defence. On the 2d March, however, the commandant,
intimidated by the advance of Bulow's army of 30,000 men, yielded up
Soissons to that general, upon a threat of an instant storm, and no
quarter allowed. The Russian standards then waved on the ramparts of
Soissons, and Blucher, arriving under its walls, acquired the full power
of uniting himself with his rear-guard, and giving or refusing battle at
his pleasure, on the very moment when Buonaparte, having turned his
flank, expected to have forced on him a most disadvantageous action.
The Emperor's wrath exhaled in a bulletin against the inconceivable
baseness of the commandant of Soissons, who was said to have given up so
important a place when he was within hearing of the cannonade on the 2d
and 3d, and must thereby have known the approach of the Emperor.[2] In
the heat of his wrath, he ordered Soissons to be assaulted and carried
by storm at all risks; but it was defended by General Langeron with
10,000 Russians. A desperate conflict ensued, but Langeron retained
possession of the town.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF CRAONNE.]
Abandoning this project, Napoleon crossed the Aisne at Béry-au-Bac, with
the purpose of attacking the left wing of Blucher's army, which, being
now concentrated, was strongly posted betwixt the village of Craonne and
the town of Laon, in such a manner as to secure a retreat upon the very
strong position which the latter town affords. Blucher imagined a
manœuvre, designed to show Buonaparte that his favourite system of
turning an enemy's flank had its risks and inconveniences. He detached
ten thousand horse under Winzengerode, by a circuitous route, with
orders that when the French commenced their march on Craonne, they
should move round and act upon their flank and rear. But the state of
the roads, and other impediments, prevented this body of cavalry from
getting up in time to execute the intended manœuvre.
Meanwhile, at eleven in the morning of the 7th March, the French began
their attack with the utmost bravery. Ney assaulted the position on the
right flank, which was defended by a ravine, and Victor, burning to show
the zeal which he had been accused of wanting, made incredible exertions
in front. But the assault was met by a defence equally obstinate, and
the contest became one of the most bloody and best-sustained during the
war. It was four in the afternoon, and the French had not yet been able
to dislodge the Russians on any point, when the latter received orders
from Blucher to withdraw from the disputed ground, and unite with the
Prussian army on the splendid position of Laon, which the maréchal
considered as a more favourable scene of action. There were no guns
lost, or prisoners made. The Russians, in despite of a general charge of
the French cavalry, retreated as on the parade. As the armies,
considering the absence of Winzengerode with the detachment of cavalry,
and of Langeron with the garrison of Soissons, were nearly equal, the
indecisive event of the battle was the more ominous. The slain and
wounded were about the same number on both sides, and the French only
retained as a mark of victory the possession of the field of battle.[3]
Napoleon himself followed the retreat of the Russians as far as an inn
between Craonne and Laon, called L'Ange Gardien, where he reposed for
the night. He, indeed, never more needed the assistance of a guardian
angel, and his own appears to have deserted his charge. It was here that
Rumigny found him when he presented the letter of Caulaincourt, praying
for final instructions from the Emperor; and it was here he could only
extract the ambiguous reply, that if he must submit to the bastinado, it
should be only by force. At this cabaret, also, he regulated his plan
for attacking the position of Blucher on the next morning; and thus
ridding himself finally, if possible, of that Silesian army, which had
been his object of disquietude for forty-two days, during the course of
which, scarce two days had passed without their being engaged in serious
conflict, either in front or rear. He received valuable information for
enabling him to make the projected attack, from a retired officer, M.
Bussy de Bellay, who had been his schoolfellow at Brienne, who lived in
the neighbourhood, and was well acquainted with the ground, and whom he
instantly rewarded with the situation of an aide-de-camp, and a large
appointment. When his plan for the attack was finished, he is said to
have exclaimed, "I see this war is an abyss without a bottom, but I am
resolved to be the last whom it shall devour."
The town of Laon is situated upon a table-land, or eminence, flattened
on the top, which rises very abruptly above a plain extending about a
league in length. The face of the declivity is steep, shelving, almost
precipitous, and occupied by terraces serving as vineyards. Bulow
defended this town and bank. The rest of the Silesian army was placed on
the plain below; the left wing, composed of Prussians, extending to the
village of Athies; the right, consisting of Russians, resting on the
hills between Thiers and Semonville.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF LAON--RHEIMS.]
Only the interval of one day elapsed between the bloody battle of
Craonne and that of Laon. On the 9th, availing himself of a thick mist,
Napoleon pushed his columns of attack to the very foot of the eminence
on which Laon is situated, possessed himself of two of the villages,
termed Semilly and Ardon, and prepared to force his way up the hill
towards the town. The weather cleared, the French attack was repelled by
a tremendous fire from terraces, vineyards, windmills, and every point
of advantage. Two battalions of Yagers, the impetus of their attack
increased by the rapidity of the descent, recovered the villages, and
the attack of Laon in front seemed to be abandoned. The French, however,
continued to retain possession, in that quarter, of a part of the
village of Clacy. Thus stood the action on the right and centre. The
French had been repulsed all along the line. On the left Maréchal
Marmont had advanced upon the village of Athies, which was the key of
Blucher's position in that point. It was gallantly defended by D'Yorck
and Kleist, supported by Sacken and Langeron. Marmont made some
progress, notwithstanding this resistance, and night found him
bivouacking in front of the enemy, and in possession of part of the
disputed village of Athies. But he was not destined to remain there till
daybreak.
Upon the 10th, at four in the morning, just as Buonaparte, arising
before daybreak, was calling for his horse, two dismounted dragoons were
brought before him, with the unpleasing intelligence that the enemy had
made a _hourra_ upon Marmont, surprised him in his bivouac, and cut to
pieces, taken, or dispersed his whole division, and they alone had
escaped to bring the tidings. All the maréchal's guns were lost, and
they believed he was himself either killed or prisoner. Officers sent to
reconnoitre, brought back a confirmation of the truth of this
intelligence, excepting as to the situation of the maréchal. He was on
the road to Rheims, near Corbeny, endeavouring to rally the fugitives.
Notwithstanding this great loss, and as if in defiance of bad fortune,
Napoleon renewed the attack upon Clacy and Semilly; but all his attempts
being fruitless, he was induced to relinquish the undertaking, under the
excuse that the position was found impregnable. On the 11th, he withdrew
from before Laon, having been foiled in all his attempts, and having
lost thirty guns, and nearly 10,000 men. The allies suffered
comparatively little, as they fought under cover.
Napoleon halted at Soissons, which, evacuated by Langeron when Blucher
concentrated his army, was now again occupied by the French. Napoleon
directed its defences to be strengthened, designing to leave Mortier to
defend the place against the advance of Blucher, which, victorious as he
was, might be instantly expected.
While at Soissons, Napoleon learned that Saint Priest, a French
emigrant, and a general in the Russian service, had occupied Rheims,
remarkable for the venerable cathedral in which the kings of France were
crowned. Napoleon instantly saw that the possession of Rheims would
renew the communication betwixt Schwartzenberg and Blucher, besides
neutralizing the advantages which he himself expected from the
possession of Soissons. He moved from Soissons to Rheims, where, after
an attack which lasted till late in the night, the Russian general being
wounded, his followers were discouraged, and evacuated the place. The
utmost horrors might have been expected during a night attack, when one
army forced another from a considerable town. But in this instance we
have the satisfaction to record, that the troops on both sides behaved
in a most orderly manner.[4] In his account of the previous action,
Napoleon threw in one of those strokes of fatality which he loved to
introduce. He endeavoured to persuade the public, or perhaps he himself
believed, that Saint Priest was shot by a ball from the same cannon
which killed Moreau.[5]
During the attack upon Rheims, Marmont came up with such forces as he
had been able to rally after his defeat at Athies, and contributed to
the success of the assault. He was, nevertheless, received by Napoleon
with bitter reproaches, felt severely by a chief, of whose honour and
talents no doubt had been expressed through a long life of soldiership.
Napoleon remained at Rheims three days, to repose and recruit his
shattered army, which was reinforced from every quarter where men could
be collected. Janssens, a Dutch officer, displayed a particular degree
of military talent in bringing a body of about 4000 men, draughted from
the garrisons of the places on the Moselle, to join the army at Rheims;
a movement of great difficulty, considering he had to penetrate through
a country which was in a great measure possessed by the enemy's
troops.[6]
The halt of Napoleon at Rheims was remarkable, as affording the last
means of transacting business with his civil ministers. Hitherto, an
auditor of the council of state had weekly brought to the Imperial
headquarters the report of the ministers, and received the orders of the
Emperor.[7] But a variety of causes rendered this regular communication
during the rest of the campaign, a matter of impossibility. At Rheims,
also, Napoleon addressed to Caulaincourt, a letter, dated 17th March, by
which he seems to have placed it in the power of that plenipotentiary to
comply in full with the terms of the allies. But the language in which
it is couched is so far from bearing the precise warrant necessary for
so important a concession, that there must remain a doubt whether
Caulaincourt would have felt justified in acting upon it, or whether so
acting, Napoleon would have recognised his doing so, if circumstances
had made it convenient for him to disown the treaty.[8]
[Sidenote: OUDINOT AND GERARD.]
While Napoleon was pursuing, fighting with, and finally defeated by
Blucher, his lieutenant-generals were not more fortunate in front of the
allied grand army. It will be recollected that the Maréchals Oudinot and
Gerard were left at the head of 25,000 men exclusive of the separate
corps under Macdonald, with orders to possess themselves of the heights
of Bar-sur-Aube, and prevent Schwartzenberg from crossing that river.
They made the movement in advance accordingly, and after a sharp action,
which left the town in their possession, they were so nigh to the allied
troops, who still held the suburbs, that a battle became unavoidable,
and the maréchals had no choice save of making the attack, or of
receiving it. They chose the former, and gained at first some advantages
from the very audacity of their attempt; but the allies had now been
long accustomed to stand their ground under greater disasters. Their
numerous reserves were brought up, and their long train of artillery got
into line. The French, after obtaining a temporary footing on the
heights of Vernonfait, were charged and driven back in disorder. Some
fine cavalry, which had been brought from the armies in Spain, was
destroyed by the overpowering cannonade. The French were driven across
the Aube, the town of Bar-sur-Aube was taken, and the defeated maréchals
could only rally their forces at the village of Vandœuvres, about
half-way between Bar and Troyes.
The defeat of Oudinot and Gerard obliged Maréchal Macdonald, who
defended the line of the river above Bar, to retreat to Troyes, from his
strong position at La Ferté-sur-Aube. He therefore fell back towards
Vandœuvres. But though these three distinguished generals, Macdonald,
Oudinot, and Gerard, had combined their talents, and united their
forces, it was impossible for them to defend Troyes, and they were
compelled to retreat upon the great road to Paris. Thus, the
headquarters of the allied monarchs were, for the second time during
this changeful war, established in the ancient capital of Champagne; and
the allied grand army recovered, by the victory of Bar-sur-Aube, all the
territory which they had yielded up in consequence of Buonaparte's
success at Montereau. They once more threatened to descend the Seine
upon Paris, being entitled to despise any opposition offered by a feeble
line, which Macdonald, Oudinot, and Gerard, endeavoured to defend on the
left bank.
But Schwartzenberg's confidence in his position was lowered, when he
heard that Napoleon had taken Rheims; and that, on the evening of the
17th, Ney, with a large division, had occupied Chalons-sur-Marne. This
intelligence made a deep impression on the Austrian council of war.
Their tactics being rigidly those of the old school of war, they
esteemed their army turned whenever a French division occupied such a
post as interposed betwixt them and their allies. This, indeed, is in
one sense true; but it is equally true, that every division so
interposed is itself liable to be turned, if the hostile divisions
betwixt which it is interposed take combined measures for attacking it.
The catching, therefore, too prompt an alarm, or considering the
consequences of such a movement as irretrievable, belongs to the
pedantry of war, and not to its science.
At midnight a council was held for the purpose of determining the future
motions of the allies. The generalissimo recommended a retreat behind
the line of the Aube. The Emperor Alexander opposed this with great
steadiness. He observed, with justice, that the protracted war was
driving the country people to despair, and that the peasantry were
already taking up arms, while the allies only wanted resolution,
certainly neither opportunity nor numbers, to decide the affair by a
single blow.
So many were the objections stated, and so difficult was it to bring the
various views and interests of so many powers to coincide in the same
general plan, that the Emperor informed one of his attendants, he
thought the anxiety of the night must have turned half his hair grey.
Lord Castlereagh was against the opinion of Schwartzenberg, the rather
that he concluded that a retreat behind the Aube would be a preface to
one behind the Rhine. Taking it upon him, as became the Minister of
Britain at such a crisis, he announced to the allied powers, that, so
soon as they should commence the proposed retreat, the subsidies of
England would cease to be paid to them.[9]
[Sidenote: THE MARCH UPON PARIS.]
It was, therefore, finally agreed to resume offensive operations, for
which purpose they proposed to diminish the distance betwixt the allied
grand army and that of Silesia, and resume such a communication with
Blucher as might prevent the repetition of such disasters as those of
Montmirail and Montereau. With this view it was determined to descend
the Aube, unite their army at Arcis, offer Napoleon battle, should he
desire to accept it, or move boldly on Paris if he should refuse the
proffered action. What determined them more resolutely, from this
moment, to approach the capital as soon as possible, was the
intelligence which arrived at the headquarters by Messieurs de
Polignac.[10] These gentlemen brought an encouraging account of the
progress of the Royalists in the metropolis, and of the general
arrangements which were actively pursued for uniting with the interests
of the Bourbons that of all others, who, from dislike to Buonaparte's
person and government, or fear that the country, and they themselves,
must share in his approaching ruin, were desirous to get rid of the
Imperial government. Talleyrand was at the head of the confederacy, and
all were resolved to embrace the first opportunity of showing
themselves, which the progress of the allies should permit. This
important intelligence, coming from such unquestionable authority,
strengthened the allies in their resolution to march upon Paris.
In the meantime, Napoleon being at Rheims, as stated, on the 15th and
16th March, was alarmed by the news of the loss of the battle of Bar,
the retreat of the three maréchals beyond the Seine, and the
demonstrations of the grand army to cross that river once more. He broke
up, as we have seen, from Rheims on the 17th, and sending Ney to take
possession of Chalons, marched himself to Epernay, with the purpose of
placing himself on the right flank, and in the rear of Schwartzenberg,
in case he should advance on the road to Paris. At Epernay, he learned
that the allies, alarmed by his movements, had retired to Troyes, and
that they were about to retreat upon the Aube, and probably to Langres.
He also learned that the maréchals, Macdonald and Oudinot, had resumed
their advance so soon as their adversaries began to retreat. He hastened
to form a junction with these persevering leaders, and proceeded to
ascend the Aube as high as Bar, where he expected to throw himself into
Schwartzenberg's rear, having no doubt that his army was retiring from
the banks of the Aube.
In these calculations, accurate as far as the information permitted,
Buonaparte was greatly misled. He conceived himself to be acting upon
the retreat of the allies, and expected only to find a rear-guard at
Arcis; he was even talking jocularly of making his father-in-law
prisoner during his retreat. If, contrary to his expectation, he should
find the enemy, or any considerable part of them, still upon the Aube,
it was, from all he had heard, to be supposed his appearance would
precipitate their retreat towards the frontier. It has also been
asserted, that he expected Maréchal Macdonald to make a corresponding
advance from the banks of the Seine to those of the Aube; but the orders
had been received too late to admit of the necessary space being
traversed so as to arrive on the morning of the day of battle.
Napoleon easily drove before him such bodies of light cavalry, and
sharp-shooters, as had been left by the allies, rather for the purpose
of reconnoitring than of making serious opposition. He crossed the Aube
at Plancey, and moved upwards along the left bank of the river, with
Ney's corps, and his whole cavalry, while the infantry of his guard
advanced upon the right; his army being thus, according to the French
military phrase, _à cheval_ upon the Aube. The town of Arcis had been
evacuated by the allies upon his approach, and was occupied by the
French on the morning of the 20th March. That town forms the outlet of a
sort of defile, where a succession of narrow bridges cross a number of
drains, brooks, and streamlets, the feeders of the river Aube, and a
bridge in the town crosses the river itself. On the other side of Arcis
is a plain, in which some few squadrons of cavalry, resembling a
reconnoitring party, were observed manœuvring.
Behind these horse, at a place called Clermont, the Prince Royal of
Wirtemberg, whose name has been so often honourably mentioned, was
posted with his division, while the elite of the allied army was drawn
up on a chain of heights still farther in the rear, called Mesnil la
Comtesse. But these forces were not apparent to the vanguard of
Napoleon's army. The French cavalry had orders to attack the light
troops of the allies; but these were instantly supported by whole
regiments, and by cannon, so that the attack was unsuccessful; and the
squadrons of the French were repulsed and driven back on Arcis at a
moment, when, from the impediments in the town and its environs, the
infantry could with difficulty debouche from the town to support them.
Napoleon showed, as he always did in extremity, the same heroic courage
which he had exhibited at Lodi and Brienne. He drew his sword, threw
himself among the broken cavalry, called on them to remember their
former victories, and checked the enemy by an impetuous charge, in which
he and his staff-officers fought hand to hand with their opponents, so
that he was in personal danger from the lance of a Cossack, the thrust
of which was averted by his aide-de-camp, Girardin. His Mameluke Rustan
fought stoutly by his side, and received a gratuity for his bravery.
These desperate exertions afforded time for the infantry to debouche
from the town. The Imperial Guards came up, and the combat waxed very
warm. The superior numbers of the allies rendered them the assailants on
all points. A strongly situated village in front, and somewhat to the
left of Arcis, called Grand Torcy, had been occupied by the French. This
place was repeatedly and desperately attacked by the allies, but the
French made good their position. Arcis itself was set on fire by the
shells of the assailants, and night alone separated the combatants, by
inducing the allies to desist from the attack.
In the course of the night, Buonaparte was joined by Macdonald, Oudinot,
and Gerard, with the forces with which they had lately held the
defensive upon the Seine; and the anxious question remained, whether,
thus reinforced, he should venture an action with the grand army, to
which he was still much inferior in numbers. Schwartzenberg, agreeably
to the last resolution of the allies, drew up on the heights of Mesnil
la Comtesse, prepared to receive battle. On consideration of the
superior strength of the enemy, and of the absence of some troops not
yet come up, Napoleon finally determined not to accept a battle under
such disadvantageous circumstances. He therefore commenced a retreat,
the direction of which was doomed to prove the crisis of his fate. He
retired as he had advanced, along both sides of the Aube; and though
pursued and annoyed in this movement (which was necessarily executed
through Arcis and all its defiles,) his rear-guard was so well
conducted, that he sustained little loss. A late author,[11] who has
composed an excellent and scientific work on this campaign, has
remarked--"In concluding the account of the two days thus spent by the
contending armies in presence of each other, it is equally worthy of
remark, that Buonaparte, with a force not exceeding 25,000 or 30,000
men, should have risked himself in such a position in front of 80,000 of
the allies, as that the latter should have allowed him to escape them
with impunity." The permitting him to retreat with so little annoyance
has been censured in general by all who have written on this
campaign.[12]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See _ante_, vol. iv., p. 356.
[2] Moniteur, March 11.
[3] "This was the best fought action during the campaign: the numbers
engaged on both sides were nearly equal; the superiority, if any, being
on the side of the French."--LORD BURGHERSH, _Operations_, &c., p. 196.
[4] Baron Fain, p. 193.
[5] Moniteur, March 14.
[6] Baron Fain, p. 194.
[7] "Whatever might have been the hardships of the campaign, and the
importance of occasional circumstances, Napoleon superintended and
regularly provided for everything; and, up to the present moment, showed
himself adequate to direct the affairs of the interior, as well as the
complicated movements of the army."--BARON FAIN, p. 195.
[8] The words alleged to convey such extensive powers as totally to
recall and alter every former restriction upon Caulaincourt's exercise
of his own opinion, are contained, as above stated, in a letter from
Rheims, dated 17th March, 1814. "I have charged the Duke of Bassano to
answer your letter in detail. I give you directly the authority to make
such concessions as shall be indispensable to maintain the continuance
(_activité_) of the negotiations, and to arrive at a knowledge of the
ultimatum of the allies; it being distinctly understood that the treaty
shall have for its immediate result the evacuation of our territory, and
the restoring prisoners on both sides."--NAPOLEON, _Mémoires_, tom. ii.,
p. 399.
[9] Lord Burghersh, in his memoranda previously quoted, states that Lord
Castlereagh was not at Troyes upon this occasion, that he made no such
declaration as Sir Walter Scott ascribes to him: and that any such
declaration would have been uncalled for, as Prince Schwartzenberg was
bent on concentrating his forces at Arcis--which he did. Compare
"_Operations_," &c., p. 179.--ED. (1842.)
[10] For _Messieurs de Polignac_, we should read _Monsieur de
Vitrolles_.--See Lord Burghersh's "Operations," p. 266. _Note._--ED.
(1842.)
[11] Memoir of the Operations of the Allied Armies in 1813 and 1814. By
Lord Burghersh.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
_Plans of Buonaparte--Military and Political Questions regarding
Paris--Napoleon crosses the Marne on 22d March--Retrospect of Events
in the vicinity of Lyons, &c.--Defeats of the French in various
quarters--Marmont and Mortier retreat under the walls of
Paris--Joseph Buonaparte--Maria Louisa, with the Civil Authorities,
leave the City--Attack of Paris on the 30th--A Truce
accorded--Joseph flies._
[Sidenote: PLANS OF BUONAPARTE.]
The decline of Napoleon's waning fortunes having been such, as to turn
him aside from an offered field of battle, and to place him betwixt two
armies, each superior in number to his own, called now for a speedy and
decisive resolution.
The manœuvres of Schwartzenberg and Blucher tended evidently to form a
junction; and when it is considered that Buonaparte had felt it
necessary to retreat from the army of Silesia before Laon, and from the
grand army before Arcis, it would have been frenzy to wait till they
both closed upon him. Two courses, therefore, remained;--either to draw
back within the closing circle which his enemies were about to form
around him, and, retreating before them until he had collected his whole
forces, make a stand under the walls of Paris, aided by whatever
strength that capital possessed, and which his energies could have
called out; or, on the contrary, to march eastward, and breaking through
the same circle, to operate on the rear of the allies, and on their
lines of communication. This last was a subject on which the Austrians
had expressed such feverish anxiety, as would probably immediately
induce them to give up all thoughts of advancing, and march back to the
frontier. Such a result was the rather to be hoped, because the
continued stay of the allies, and the passage and repassage of troops
through an exhausted country, had worn out the patience of the hardy
peasantry of Alsace and Franche Comté, whom the exactions and rapine,
inseparable from the movements of a hostile soldiery, had now roused
from the apathy with which they had at first witnessed the invasion of
their territory. Before Lyons, Napoleon might reckon on being reinforced
by the veteran army of Suchet, arrived from Catalonia; and he would be
within reach of the numerous chain of fortresses, which had garrisons
strong enough to form an army, if drawn together.
The preparations for arranging such a force, and for arming the
peasantry, had been in progress for some time. Trusty agents, bearing
orders concealed in the sheaths of their knives, the collars of their
dogs, or about their persons, had been detached to warn the various
commandants of the Emperor's pleasure. Several were taken by the
blockading troops of the allies, and hanged as spies, but others made
their way. While at Rheims, Buonaparte had issued an order for rousing
the peasantry, in which he not only declared their arising in arms was
an act of patriotic duty, but denounced as traitors the mayors of the
districts who should throw obstructions in the way of a general levy.
The allies, on the contrary, threatened the extremity of military
execution on all the peasantry who should obey Napoleon's call to arms.
It was, as we formerly observed, an excellent exemplification, how much
political opinions depend on circumstances; for, after the second
capture of Vienna, the Austrians were calling out the levy-en-masse, and
Napoleon, in his turn, was threatening to burn the villages, and execute
the peasants, who should dare to obey.
While Napoleon was at Rheims, the affairs of the north-east frontier
seemed so promising, that Ney offered to take the command of the
insurrectionary army; and, as he was reckoned the best officer of light
troops in Europe, it is not improbable he might have brought the
levies-en-masse on that warlike border, to have fought like the French
national forces in the beginning of the Revolution. Buonaparte did not
yield to this proposal. Perhaps he thought so bold a movement could only
succeed under his own eye.
[Sidenote: PARIS.]
But there were two especial considerations which must have made Napoleon
hesitate in adopting this species of back-game, designed to redeem the
stake which it was impossible to save by the ordinary means of carrying
on the bloody play. The one was the military question, whether Paris
could be defended, if Napoleon was to move to the rear of the allied
army, instead of falling back upon the city with the army which he
commanded. The other question was of yet deeper import, and of a
political nature. The means of the capital for defence being supposed
adequate, was it likely that Paris, a town of 700,000 inhabitants,
divided into factions unaccustomed to the near voice of war, and
startled by the dreadful novelty of their situation, would submit to the
sacrifices which a successful defence of the city must in every event
have required? Was, in short, their love and fear of Buonaparte so
great, that without his personal presence, and that of his army, to
encourage, and at the same time overawe them, they would willingly incur
the risk of seeing their beautiful metropolis destroyed, and all the
horrors of a sack inflicted by the mass of nations whom Napoleon's
ambition had been the means of combining against them, and who
proclaimed themselves the enemies, not of France, but of Buonaparte?
Neither of these questions could be answered with confidence. Napoleon,
although he had embodied 30,000 national guards, had not provided arms
for a third part of the number. This is hinted at by some authors, as if
the want of these arms ought to be imputed to some secret treason. But
this accusation has never been put in any tangible shape. The arms never
existed, and never were ordered; and although Napoleon had nearly three
months' time allowed him, after his return to Paris, yet he never
thought of arming the Parisians in general. Perhaps he doubted their
fidelity to his cause. He ordered, it is said, 200 cannon to be provided
for the defence of the northern and eastern line of the city, but
neither were these obtained in sufficient quantity. The number of
individuals who could be safely intrusted with arms, was also much
limited. Whether, therefore, Paris was, in a military point of view,
capable of defence or not, must have, in every event, depended much on
the strength of the military force left to protect it. This Napoleon
knew must be very moderate. His hopes were therefore necessarily limited
by circumstances, to the belief that Paris, though incapable of a
protracted defence, might yet hold out for such a space as might enable
him to move to its relief.
But, secondly, as the means of holding out Paris were very imperfect, so
the inclination of the citizens to defend themselves at the expense of
any considerable sacrifice, was much doubted. It was not in reason to be
expected that the Parisians should imitate the devotion of Zaragossa.
Each Spanish citizen, on that memorable occasion, had his share of
interest in the war which all maintained--a portion, namely, of that
liberty and independence for which it was waged. But the Parisians were
very differently situated. They were not called on to barricade their
streets, destroy their suburbs, turn their houses into fortresses, and
themselves into soldiers, and expose their property and families to the
horrors of a storm; and this not for any advantage to France or
themselves, but merely that they might maintain Napoleon on the throne.
The ceaseless, and of late the losing wars, in which he seemed
irretrievably engaged, had rendered his government unpopular; and it was
plain to all, except perhaps himself, that he did not stand in that
relation to the people of Paris, when citizens are prepared to die for
their sovereign. It might have been as well expected that the frogs in
the fable would, in case of invasion, have risen in a mass to defend
King Serpent. It is probable that Buonaparte did not see this in the
true point of view; but that, with the feelings of self-importance which
sovereigns must naturally acquire from their situation, and which, from
his high actions and distinguished talents, he of all sovereigns, was
peculiarly entitled to indulge--it is probable that he lost sight of
the great disproportion betwixt the nation and an individual; and
forgot, amid the hundreds of thousands which Paris contains, what small
relation the number of his own faithful and devoted followers bore, not
only to those who were perilously engaged in factions hostile to him,
but to the great mass, who, in Hotspur's phrase, loved their own shops
or barns better than his house.[13]
Thirdly, the consequences of Paris being lost, either from not
possessing, or not employing, the means of defence, were sure to be
productive of irretrievable calamity. Russia, as had been shown, could
survive the destruction of its capital, and perhaps Great Britain's fate
might not be decided by the capture of London. But the government of
France had, during all the phases of the Revolution, depended upon the
possession of Paris--a capital which has at all times directed the
public opinion of that country. Should the military occupation of this
most influential of all capitals, bring about, as was most likely, a
political and internal revolution, it was greatly to be doubted, whether
the Emperor could make an effectual stand in any other part of his
dominions.
It must be candidly admitted, that this reasoning, as being subsequent
to the fact, has a much more decisive appearance than it could have had
when subjected to the consideration of Napoleon. He was entitled, from
the feverish anxiety hitherto shown by the Austrians, upon any approach
to flank movements, and by the caution of their general proceedings, to
think, that they would be greatly too timorous to adopt the bold step of
pressing onward to Paris. It was more likely that they would follow him
to the frontier, with the purpose of preserving their communications.
Besides, Napoleon at this crisis had but a very slender choice of
measures. To remain where he was, between Blucher and Schwartzenberg,
was not possible; and, in advancing to either flank, he must have fought
with a superior enemy. To retreat upon Paris, was sure to induce the
whole allies to pursue in the same direction; and the encouragement
which such a retreat must have given to his opponents, might have had
the most fatal consequences. Perhaps his partisans might have taken more
courage during his absence, from the idea that he was at the head of a
conquering army, in the rear of the allies, than during his actual
presence, if he had arrived in Paris in consequence of a compulsory
retreat.
Buonaparte seems, as much from a sort of necessity as from choice, to
have preferred breaking through the circle of hunters which hemmed him
in, trusting to strengthen his army with the garrisons drawn from the
frontier fortresses, and with the warlike peasantry of Alsace and
Franche Comté, and, thus reinforced, to advance with rapidity on the
rear of his enemies, ere they had time to execute, or perhaps to
arrange, any system of offensive operations. The scheme appeared the
more hopeful, as he was peremptory in his belief that his march could
not fail to draw after him, in pursuit, or observation at least, the
grand army of Schwartzenberg; the general maxim, that the war could only
be decided where he was present in person, being, as he conceived, as
deeply impressed by experience upon his enemies as upon his own
soldiers.
Napoleon could not disguise from himself, what indeed he had told the
French public, that a march, or, as he termed it, a _hourra_ upon Paris,
was the principal purpose of the allies. Every movement made in advance,
whether by Blucher or Schwartzenberg, had this for its object. But they
had uniformly relinquished the undertaking, upon his making any
demonstration to prevent it; and therefore he did not suspect them of a
resolution so venturous as to move directly upon Paris, leaving the
French army unbroken in their rear, to act upon their line of
communication with Germany. It is remarked, that those chess-players who
deal in the most venturous gambits are least capable of defending
themselves when attacked in the same audacious manner; and that, in war,
the generals whose usual and favourite tactics are those of advance and
attack, have been most frequently surprised by the unexpected adoption
of offensive operations on the part of their enemy. Napoleon had been so
much accustomed to see his antagonists bend their attention rather to
parry blows than to aim them, and was so confident in the dread
impressed by his rapidity of movement, his energy of assault, and the
terrors of his reputation, that he seems to have entertained little
apprehension of the allies adopting a plan of operations which had no
reference to his own, and which, instead of attempting to watch or
counteract his movements in the rear of their army, should lead them
straight forward to take possession of his capital. Besides,
notwithstanding objections have been stated, which seemed to render a
_permanent_ defence impossible, there were other considerations to be
taken into view. The ground to the north of Paris is very strong, the
national guard was numerous, the lower part of the population of a
military character, and favourable to his cause. A defence, if resolute,
however brief, would have the double effect of damping the ardour of the
assailants, and of detaining them before the walls of the capital, until
Buonaparte should advance to its relief, and thus place the allies
between two fires. It was not to be supposed that the surrender of Paris
would be the work of a single day. The unanimous voice of the journals,
of the ministers of the police, and of the thousands whose interest was
radically and deeply entwisted with that of Buonaparte, assured their
master on that point. The movement to the rear, therefore, though
removing him from Paris, which it might expose to temporary alarm, might
not, in Buonaparte's apprehension, seriously compromise the security of
the capital.
The French Emperor, in executing this decisive movement, was extremely
desirous to have possessed himself of Vitry, which lay in the line of
his advance. But as this town contained a garrison of about 5000 men,
commanded by an officer of resolution, he returned a negative to the
summons; and Napoleon, in no condition to attempt a _coup-de-main_ on a
place of some strength, passed the Marne on the 22d of March, over a
bridge of rafts constructed at Frigincour, and continued his movement
towards the eastern frontier, increasing the distance at every step
betwixt him and his capital, and at the same time betwixt him and his
enemies.
In the meantime, events had taken place in the vicinity of Lyons,
tending greatly to limit any advantages which Napoleon might have
expected to reap on the south-eastern part of the frontier towards
Switzerland, and also to give spirits to the numerous enemies of his
government in Provence, where the Royalists always possessed a
considerable party.
The reinforcements despatched by the Austrians under General Bianchi,
and their reserves, brought forward by the Prince of Hesse-Homberg, had
restored their superiority over Augereau's army. He was defeated at
Macon on the 11th of March, in a battle which he had given for the
purpose of maintaining his line on the Saone. A second time, he was
defeated on the 18th at St. George, and obliged to retire in great
disorder, with scarce even the means of defending the Isère, up which
river he retreated. Lyons, thus uncovered, opened its gates to Bianchi;
and, after all that they had heard concerning the losses of the allies,
the citizens saw with astonishment and alarm an untouched body of their
troops, amounting to 60,000 men, defile through their streets. This
defeat of Augereau was probably unknown to Napoleon, when he determined
to march to the frontiers, and thought he might reckon on co-operation
with the Lyonnese army. Though, therefore, the Emperor's movement to St.
Dizier was out of the rules of ordinary war, and though it enabled the
allies to conceive and execute the daring scheme which put an end to the
campaign, yet it was by no means hopeless in its outset; or, we would
rather say, was one of the few alternatives which the crisis of his
affairs left to Buonaparte, and which, judging from the previous
vacillation and cautious timidity displayed in the councils of the
allies, he had no reason to apprehend would have given rise to the
consequences that actually followed.
[Sidenote: THE ALLIES ADVANCE.]
The allies, who had in their latest councils wound up their resolution
to the decisive experiment of marching on Paris, were at first at a loss
to account for Napoleon's disappearance, or to guess whither he had
gone. This occasioned some hesitation and loss of time. At length, by
the interception of a French courier, they found despatches addressed by
Buonaparte to his government at Paris, from which they were enabled to
conjecture the real purpose and direction of his march. A letter,[14]
in the Emperor's own hand, to Maria Louisa, confirmed the certainty of
the information.[15] The allies resolved to adhere, under this
unexpected change of circumstances, to the bold resolution they had
already formed. To conceal the real direction of his march, as well as
to open communications with the Silesian army, Schwartzenberg, moving
laterally, transferred his headquarters to Vitry, where he arrived on
the 24th, two days after it had been summoned by Napoleon. Blucher, in
the meantime, approached his army from Laon to Chalons, now entirely
re-organised after the two bloody battles which it had sustained. As a
necessary preparation for the advance, General Ducca was left on the
Aube, with a division of Austrians, for the purpose of defending their
depôts, keeping open their communications, and guarding the person of
the Emperor Francis, who did not perhaps judge it delicate to approach
Paris in arms, with the rest of the sovereigns, while the city was
nominally governed by his own daughter as Regent. Ducca had also in
charge, if pressed, to retreat upon the Prince of Hesse-Homberg's army,
which was in triumphant possession of Lyons.
This important arrangement being made, another was adopted equally
necessary to deceive and observe Napoleon. Ten thousand cavalry were
selected, under the enterprising generals, Winzengerode and Czernicheff,
who, with fifty pieces of cannon, were despatched to hang on
Buonaparte's march, to obstruct his communications with the country he
had left, intercept couriers from Paris, or information respecting the
motions of the allied armies, and to present on all occasions such a
front, as, if possible, might impress him with the belief, that their
corps formed the vanguard of the whole army of Schwartzenberg. The
Russian and Prussian light troops meanwhile scoured the roads, and
intercepted, near Sommepuix, a convoy of artillery and ammunition
belonging to Napoleon's rear-guard, when twenty pieces of cannon, with a
strong escort, fell into their hands. They also cut off several
couriers, bringing important despatches to Napoleon from Paris. One of
these was loaded with as heavy tidings as ever were destined to afflict
falling greatness. This packet informed Napoleon of the descent of the
English in Italy; of the entry of the Austrians into Lyons, and the
critical state of Augereau; of the declaration of Bourdeaux in favour
of Louis; of the demonstrations of Wellington towards Toulouse; of the
disaffected state of the public mind, and the exhausted condition of the
national resources. Much of these tidings was new to the allied
sovereigns and generals; but it was received by them with very different
sensations from those which the intelligence was calculated to inflict
upon him for whom the packet was intended.
Blucher, in the meantime, so soon as he felt the opposition to his
movements diminished by the march of Buonaparte from Chalons to Arcis,
had instantly resumed the offensive, and driven the corps of Mortier and
Marmont, left to observe his motions, over the Marne. He passed the
Aisne, near Béry-le-Bac, repossessed himself of Rheims by blowing open
the gates and storming the place, and, having gained these successes,
moved towards Chalons and Vitry. His course had hitherto been
south-eastward, in order to join with Schwartzenberg; but he now
received from the King of Prussia the welcome order to turn his march
westward, and move straight upon Paris. The grand army adopted the same
direction, and thus they moved on in corresponding lines, and in
communication with each other.
While Buonaparte, retiring to the east, prepared for throwing himself on
the rear of the allies, he was necessarily, in person, exposed to the
same risk of having his communications cut off, and his supplies
intercepted, which it was the object of his movement to inflict upon his
enemy. Marmont and Mortier, who retreated before Blucher over the Marne,
had orders to move upon Vitry, probably because that movement would have
placed them in the rear of Schwartzenberg, had he been induced to
retreat from the line of the Aube, as Napoleon expected he would. But as
a very different course had been adopted by the allies, from that which
Napoleon had anticipated, the two maréchals found themselves
unexpectedly in front of their grand army near Fère-Champenoise. They
were compelled to attempt a retreat to Sezanne, in which, harassed by
the numerous cavalry of the allies, they sustained heavy loss.
While the cavalry were engaged in pursuit of the maréchals, the infantry
of the allies were approaching the town of Fère-Champenoise, when a
heavy fire was heard in the vicinity, and presently appeared a large
column of infantry, advancing checker-wise and by intervals, followed
and repeatedly charged by several squadrons of cavalry, who were
speedily recognised as belonging to the Silesian army. The infantry,
about 5000 in number, had left Paris with a large convoy of provisions
and ammunition. They were proceeding towards Montmirail, when they were
discovered and attacked by the cavalry of Blucher's army. Unable to make
a stand, they endeavoured, by an alteration of their march, to reach
Fère-Champenoise, where they expected to find either the Emperor, or
Marmont and Mortier. It was thus their misfortune to fall upon Scylla in
seeking to avoid Charybdis. The column consisted entirely of young men,
conscripts, or national guards, who had never before been in action.
Yet, neither the necessity of their condition, nor their unexpected
surprise in meeting first one, and then a second army of enemies, where
they looked only for friends, could induce these spirited young men to
surrender. Rappatel, the aide-de-camp of Moreau, and entertained in the
same capacity by the Emperor Alexander, was shot, while attempting, by
the orders of the Emperor, to explain to them the impossibility of
resistance. The French say, that the brother of Rappatel served in the
company from which the shot came which killed the unfortunate officer.
The artillery at length opened on the French on every side; they were
charged by squadron after squadron; the whole convoy was taken, and the
escort were killed, wounded, or made prisoners.[16]
[Sidenote: ALLIES APPROACH PARIS.]
Thus the allies continued to advance upon Paris, while the shattered
divisions of Mortier and Marmont, hard pressed by the cavalry, lost a
rear-guard of 1500 men near Ferté Gauchère. At Crecy they parted into
two bodies, one retreating on Meaux, the other on Lagny. They were still
pursued and harassed; and at length, the soldiers becoming desperate,
could hardly be kept together, while the artillerymen cut the traces of
their guns, and mounted their draught-horses, to effect their escape. It
is computed that the French divisions, between Fère-Champenoise and
Lagny, lost 8000 men, and eighty guns, besides immense quantities of
baggage and ammunition. Indeed, surrounded as they were by overpowering
numbers, it required no little skill in the generals, as well as bravery
and devotion in the soldiers, to keep the army from dissolving entirely.
The allies, gaining advantages at every step, moved on with such
expedition, that when, on the 27th March, they took up their
headquarters at Collomiers, they had marched upwards of seventy miles in
three days.
An effort was made, by about 10,000 men of the national guards, to stop
a column of the army of Silesia, but it totally failed; General Horne
galloping into the very centre of the French mass of infantry, and
making prisoner the general who commanded them with his own hand. When
Blucher approached Meaux, the garrison (a part of Mortier's army)
retreated, blowing up a large powder magazine. This was on the 28th of
March, and on the evening of the same day, the vanguard of the Silesian
army pushed on as far as Claye, from whence, not without a sharp action,
they dislodged a part of the divisions of Marmont and Mortier. These
maréchals now retreated under the walls of Paris, their discouraged and
broken forces forming the only regular troops, excepting those of the
garrison, which could be reckoned on for the defence of the capital.
The allied armies moved onward, on the same grand point, leaving,
however, Generals Wrede and Sacken, with a corps d'armée of 30,000 men,
upon the line of the Marne, to oppose any attempt which might be made
for annoying the rear of the army, and thus relieving the metropolis.
Deducing this covering army, the rest of the allied forces moved in
columns along the three grand routes of Meaux, Lagny, and Soissons, thus
threatening Paris along all its north-eastern quarter. The military
sovereigns and their victorious armies were now in sight of that
metropolis, whose ruler and his soldiers had so often and so long lorded
it in theirs; of that Paris, which, unsatisfied with her high rank among
the cities of Europe, had fomented constant war until all should be
subjugated to her empire; of that proud city, who boasted herself the
first in arms and in science, the mistress and example of the civilized
world, the depositary of all that is wonderful in the fine arts, and the
dictatress as well of taste as of law to continental Europe.
[Sidenote: PARIS.]
The position of Paris, on the north-eastern frontier, which was thus
approached, is as strongly defensible, perhaps, as can be said of any
unfortified town in the world. Art, however, had added little to the
defence of the city itself, except a few wretched redoubts (called by
the French _tambours_,) erected for protection of the barriers. But the
external line was very strong, as will appear from the following sketch.
The heights which environ the city on the eastern side, rise abruptly
from an extensive plain, and form a steep and narrow ridge, which sinks
again as suddenly upon the eastern quarter of the town, which it seems
to screen as with a natural bulwark. The line of defence which they
afford is extremely strong. The southern extremity of the ridge, which
rests upon the wood of Vincennes, extending southward to the banks of
the river Marne, is called the heights of Belleville and Romainville,
taking its name from two delightful villages which occupy it, Belleville
being nearest, and Romainville most distant from Paris. The heights are
covered with romantic groves, and decorated by many pleasant villas,
with gardens, orchards, vineyards, and plantations. These, which, in
peaceful times, are a favourite resort of the gay Parisians, on their
parties of pleasure, were now to be occupied by other guests, and for
far different purposes. In advance of these heights, and protected by
them, is the village of Pantin, situated on the great road from Bondy.
To the left of Romainville, and more in front of Belleville, is a
projecting eminence, termed the Butte de Saint Chaumont. The ridge there
sinks, and admits a half-finished aqueduct, called the canal de l'Ourcq.
The ground then again rises into the bold and steep eminence, called
Montmartre, from being the supposed place of the martyrdom of St. Denis,
the patron of France. From the declivity of this steep hill is a level
plain, extending to the river Seine, through which runs the principal
northern approach to Paris, from the town of Saint Denis. The most
formidable preparations had been made for maintaining this strong line
of defence, behind which the city lay sheltered. The extreme right of
the French forces occupied the wood of Vincennes, and the village of
Charenton upon the Marne, and was supported by the troops stationed on
the heights of Belleville, Romainville, and on the Butte de Chaumont,
which composed the right wing. Their centre occupied the line formed by
the half-finished canal de l'Ourcq, was defended by the village of La
Villette, and a strong redoubt on the farm of Rouvroi, mounted with
eighteen heavy guns, and by the embankments of the canal, and still
farther protected by a powerful artillery planted in the rear, on the
heights of Montmartre. The left wing was thrown back from the village
called Monceaux, near the north-western extremity of the heights, and
prolonged itself to that of Neuilly, on the Seine, which was strongly
occupied by the extreme left of their army. Thus, with the right
extremity of the army resting upon the river Marne, and the left upon
the Seine, the French occupied a defensive semicircular line, which
could not be turned, the greater part of which was posted on heights of
uncommon steepness, and the whole defended by cannon, placed with the
utmost science and judgment, but very deficient in point of numbers.
The other side of Paris is almost defenceless; but, in order to have
attacked it on that side, the allies must have previously crossed the
Seine; an operation successfully practised in the following year, but
which at that period, when their work, to be executed at all, must be
done suddenly, they had no leisure to attempt, considering the great
probability of Napoleon's coming up in their rear, recalled by the
danger of the capital. They were therefore compelled to prefer a sudden
and desperate attack upon the strongest side of the city, to the slower,
though more secure measure of turning the formidable line of defence
which we have endeavoured to describe.
Three times, since the allies crossed the Rhine, the capital of France
had been menaced by the approach of troops within twenty miles of the
city, but it had uniformly been delivered by the active and rapid
movements of Napoleon. Encouraged by this recollection, the citizens,
without much alarm, heard, for the fourth time, that the Cossacks had
been seen at Meaux. Stifled rumours, however, began to circulate, that
the divisions of Marmont and Mortier had sustained severe loss, and were
in full retreat on the capital; a fact speedily confirmed by the long
train of wounded who entered the barriers of the city, with looks of
consternation and words of discouragement. Then came crowds of peasants,
flying they knew not whither, before an enemy whose barbarous rapacity
had been so long the theme of every tongue, bringing with them their
half-naked and half-starved families, their teams, their carts, and such
of their herds and household goods as they could remove in haste. These
unfortunate fugitives crowded the Boulevards of Paris, the usual resort
of the gay world, adding, by exaggerated and contradictory reports, to
the dreadful ideas which the Parisians already conceived of the
approaching storm.
The government, chiefly directed by Joseph Buonaparte, in the name of
his sister-in-law Maria Louisa, did all they could to encourage the
people, by exaggerating their means of defence, and maintaining with
effrontery, that the troops which approached the capital, composed but
some isolated column which by accident straggled towards Paris, while
the Emperor was breaking, dividing, and slaughtering, the gross of the
confederated army. The light could not be totally shut out, but such
rays as were admitted were highly coloured with hope, having been made
to pass through the medium of the police and public papers. A grand
review of the troops destined for the defence of the capital was held
upon the Sunday preceding the assault. Eight thousand troops of the
line, being the garrison of Paris, under Gerard, and 30,000 national
guards, commanded by Hulin, governor of the city, passed in order
through the stately court of the Tuileries, followed by their trains of
artillery, their corps of pioneers, and their carriages for baggage and
ammunition. This was an imposing and encouraging spectacle, until it was
remembered that these forces were not designed to move out to distant
conquest, the destination of many hundreds of thousands which in other
days had been paraded before that palace; but that they were the last
hope of Paris, who must defend all that she contained by a battle under
her walls. The remnants of Marmont and Mortier's corps d'armée made no
part of this parade. Their diminished battalions, and disordered state
of equipment, were ill calculated to inspire courage into the public
mind. They were concentrated and stationed on the line of defence
already described, beyond the barriers of the city. But the maréchals
themselves entered Paris, and gave their assistance to the military
councils of Joseph Buonaparte.
Preparations were made by the government to remove beyond the Loire, or
at least in that direction. Maria Louisa had none of the spirit of an
Amazon, though graced with all the domestic virtues. She was also placed
painfully in the course of a war betwixt her husband and father.
Besides, she obeyed, and probably with no lack of will, Napoleon's
injunctions to leave the capital, if danger should approach. She left
Paris,[17] therefore, with her son, who is said to have shown an
unwillingness to depart, which, in a child, seemed to have something
ominous in it.[18] Almost all the civil authorities of Buonaparte's
government left the city at the same time, after destroying the private
records of the high police, and carrying with them the crown jewels,
and much of the public treasure. Joseph Buonaparte remained, detaining
with him, somewhat, it is said, against his inclination, Cambacérès, the
chancellor of the Emperor, whom, though somewhat too unwieldy for the
character, Napoleon had, in one of his latest councils, threatened with
the honours and dangers of the Colonelcy of a battalion. Joseph himself
had the talents of an accomplished man, and an amiable member of
society, but they do not seem to have been of a military description. He
saw his sister-in-law depart, attended by a regiment of seven hundred
men, whom some writers have alleged had been better employed in the
defence of the city; forgetting of what importance it was to Napoleon,
that the person of the Empress should be protected alike against a
roving band of Hulans, or Cossacks, or the chance of some civic mutiny.
These arrangements being made, Joseph published, on the morning of the
29th, a proclamation, assuring the citizens of Paris, that "he would
remain with them;" he described the enemy as a single straggling column
which had approached from Meaux, and required them by a brief and
valorous resistance to sustain the honour of the French name, until the
arrival of the Emperor, who, he assured the Parisians, was on full march
to their succour.[19]
Between three and four o'clock on the next eventful morning, the drums
beat to arms, and the national guards assembled in force. But of the
thousands which obeyed the call, a great part were, from age, habits,
and want of inclination, unfit for the service demanded from them. We
have also already alluded to the scarcity of arms, and certainly there
were very many of those citizen-soldiers, whom, had weapons been more
plenty, the government of Buonaparte would not have intrusted with them.
Most of the national guards, who were suitably armed, were kept within
the barrier until about eleven o'clock, and then, as their presence
became necessary, were marched to the scene of action, and arrayed in a
second line behind the regular troops, so as rather to impose upon the
enemy, by an appearance of numbers, than to take a very active share in
the contest. The most serviceable were, however, draughted to act as
sharp-shooters, and several battalions were stationed to strengthen
particular points of the line. The whole of the troops, including many
volunteers, who actively engaged in the defence of the city, might be
between 10,000 and 20,000.
The proposed assault of the allies was to be general and simultaneous,
along the whole line of defence. The Prince Royal of Wirtemberg was to
attack the extreme right of the French, in the wood of Vincennes, drive
them from the banks of the Marne and the village of Charenton, and thus
turn the heights of Belleville. The Russian general, Rayefski, making a
flank movement from the public road to Meaux, was to direct three strong
columns, with their artillery and powerful reserves, in order to attack
in front the important heights of Belleville and Romainville, and the
villages which give name to them. The Russian and Prussian body-guards
had charge to attack the centre of the enemy, posted upon the canal de
l'Ourcq, the reserves of which occupied the eminence called Montmartre.
The army of Silesia was to assail the left of the French line, so as to
turn and carry the heights of Montmartre from the north-east. The third
division of the allied army, and a strong body of cavalry, were kept in
reserve. Before the attack commenced, two successive flags of truce were
despatched to summon the city to capitulate. Both were refused
admittance; so that the intention of the defenders of Paris appeared
fixed to hazard an engagement.
It was about eight o'clock, when the Parisians, who had assembled in
anxious crowds at the barriers of St. Denis and of Vincennes, the
outlets from Paris, corresponding with the two extremities of the line,
became sensible, from the dropping succession of musket shots, which
sounded like the detached pattering of large drops of rain before a
thunder-storm, that the work of destruction was already commenced.
Presently platoons of musketry, with a close and heavy fire of cannon,
from the direction of Belleville, announced that the engagement had
become general on that part of the line.
[Sidenote: BELLEVILLE--MESNILMONTANT.]
General Rayefski had begun the attack by pushing forward a column, with
the purpose of turning the heights of Romainville on the right; but its
progress having been arrested by a heavy fire of artillery, the French
suddenly became the assailants, and under the command of Marmont, rushed
forward and possessed themselves of the village of Pantin,[20] in
advance of their line; an important post, which they had abandoned on
the preceding evening, at the approach of the allied army. It was
instantly recovered by the Russian grenadiers, at the point of the
bayonet; and the French, although they several times attempted to resume
the offensive, were driven back by the Russians on the villages of
Belleville and Mesnilmontant, while the allies pushed forward through
the wood of Romainville, under the acclivity of the heights. The most
determined and sustained fire was directed upon them from the French
batteries along the whole line. Several of these were served by the
youths of the Polytechnic school, boys from twelve to sixteen years of
age, who showed the greatest activity and the most devoted courage. The
French infantry rushed repeatedly in columns from the heights, where
opportunities occurred to check the progress of the allies. They were as
often repulsed by the Russians, each new attempt giving rise to fresh
conflicts and more general slaughter, while a continued and dispersed
combat of sharpshooters took place among the groves, vineyards, and
gardens of the villas, with which the heights are covered. At length, by
order of General de Tolli, the Russian commander-in-chief, the front
attack on the heights was suspended until the operations of the allies
on the other points should permit it to be resumed at a cheaper risk of
loss. The Russian regiments which had been dispersed as sharpshooters,
were withdrawn, and again formed in rank, and it would seem that the
French seized this opportunity to repossess themselves of the village of
Pantin, and to assume a momentary superiority in the contest.
Blucher had received his orders late in the morning, and could not
commence the attack so early as that upon the left. About eleven
o'clock, having contented himself with observing and blockading a body
of French troops, who occupied the village of St. Denis, he directed the
columns of General Langeron against the village of Aubervilliers, and,
having surmounted the obstinate opposition which was there made, moved
them by the road of Clichy, right against the extremity of the heights
of Montmartre, whilst the division of Kleist and D'Yorck marched to
attack in flank the villages of La Villette and Pantin, and thus sustain
the attack on the centre and right of the French. The defenders,
strongly intrenched and protected by powerful batteries, opposed the
most formidable resistance, and, as the ground was broken and
impracticable for cavalry, many of the attacking columns suffered
severely. When the divisions of the Silesian army, commanded by Prince
William of Prussia, first came to the assistance of the original
assailants upon the centre, the French concentrated themselves on the
strong post of La Villette, and the farm of Rouvroy, and continued to
offer the most desperate resistance in defence of these points. Upon the
allied left wing the Prussian guards, and those of Baden, threw
themselves with rival impetuosity into the village of Pantin, and
carried it at the point of the bayonet. During these advantages, the
Prince Royal of Wirtemberg, on the extreme left of the allies, had
forced his way to Vincennes, and threatened the right of the French
battalions posted at Belleville, as had been projected in the plan of
the attack. General Rayefski renewed the suspended assault upon these
heights in front, when he learned that they were thus in some measure
turned in flank, and succeeded in carrying those of Romainville, with
the village. Marmont and Oudinot in vain attempted a charge upon the
allied troops, who had thus established themselves on the French line of
defence. They were repulsed and pursued by the victors, who, following
up their advantage, possessed themselves successively of the villages of
Belleville and Mesnilmontant, the Butte de St. Chaumont, and the fine
artillery which defended this line.
About the same time the village of Charonne, on the right extremity of
the heights, was also carried, and the whole line of defence occupied by
the right wing of the French fell into possession of the allies. Their
light horse began to penetrate from Vincennes as far as the barriers of
Paris, and their guns and mortars upon the heights were turned upon the
city. The centre of the French army, stationed upon the canal de
l'Ourcq, had hitherto stood firm, protected by the redoubt at Rouvroy,
with eighteen heavy pieces of cannon, and by the village of La Villette,
which formed the key of the position. But the right flank of their line
being turned by those troops who had become possessed of Romainville,
the allies overwhelmed this part of the line also; and, carrying by
assault the farm of Rouvroy, with its strong redoubt, and the village of
La Villette, drove the centre of the French back upon the city. A body
of French cavalry attempted to check the advance of the allied columns,
but were repulsed and destroyed by a brilliant charge of the black
hussars of Brandenburgh. Meanwhile, the right wing of the Silesian army
approached close to the foot of Montmartre, and Count Langeron's corps
were preparing to storm this last remaining defensible post, when a flag
of truce appeared, to demand a cessation of hostilities.
It appears that, in the morning, Joseph Buonaparte had shown himself to
the defenders riding along the lines, accompanied by his staff, and had
repeated to all the corps engaged, the assurance that he would live and
die with them. There is reason to think, that if he did not quite credit
that such extensive preparations for assault were made by a single
division of the allies, yet he believed he had to do with only one of
their two armies, and not with their united force. He was undeceived by
a person named Peyre, called, by some, an engineer officer attached to
the staff of the Governor of Paris, and, by others, a superintendent
belonging to the corps of firemen in that city. Peyre, it seems, had
fallen into the hands of a party of Cossacks the night before, and was
carried in the morning to the presence of the Emperor Alexander, at
Bondy. In his route, he had an opportunity of calculating the immense
force of the armies now under the walls of Paris. Through the medium of
this officer, the Emperor Alexander explained the intentions of the
allied sovereigns, to allow fair terms to the city of Paris, provided it
was proposed to capitulate ere the barriers were forced; with the
corresponding intimation, that if the defence were prolonged beyond that
period, it would not be in the power either of the Emperor, the King of
Prussia, or the allied generals, to prevent the total destruction of the
town.
[Sidenote: FALL OF PARIS.]
Mons. Peyre, thus erected into a commissioner and envoy of crowned
heads, was set at liberty, and with danger and difficulty found his way
into the French lines, through the fire which was maintained in every
direction. He was introduced to Joseph, to whom he delivered his
message, and showed proclamations to the city of Paris, with which the
Emperor Alexander had intrusted him. Joseph hesitated, at first
inclining to capitulate, then pulling up resolution, and determining to
abide the chance of arms. He continued irresolute, blood flowing fast
around him, until about noon, when the enemy's columns, threatening an
attack on Montmartre, and the shells and bullets from the artillery,
which was in position to cover the attempt, flying fast over the heads
of himself and his staff, he sent Peyre to General Marmont, who acted as
commander-in-chief, with permission to the maréchal to demand a
cessation of arms. At the same time, Joseph himself fled with his whole
attendants; thus abandoning the troops, whom his exhortations had
engaged, in the bloody and hopeless resistance of which he had solemnly
promised to partake the dangers.[21] Marmont, with Moncey, and the other
generals who conducted the defence, now saw all hopes of making it good
at an end. The whole line was carried, excepting the single post of
Montmartre, which was turned, and on the point of being stormed on both
flanks, as well as in front; the Prince Royal of Wirtemberg had occupied
Charenton, with its bridge over the Marne, and pushing forward on the
high-road from thence to Paris, his advanced posts were already
skirmishing at the barriers called the Trône; and a party of Cossacks
had been with difficulty repulsed from the faubourg St. Antoine, on
which they made a _Hourra_. The city of Paris is merely surrounded by an
ordinary wall, to prevent smuggling. The barriers are not much stronger
than any ordinary turnpike gate, and the stockade with which they had
been barricaded, could have been cleared away by a few blows of the
pioneers' axes. Add to this, that the heights commanding the city,
Montmartre excepted, were in complete possession of the enemy; that a
bomb or two, thrown probably to intimidate the citizens, had already
fallen in the faubourg Montmartre, and the chaussée d'Antin; and that it
was evident that any attempt to protract the defence of Paris, must be
attended with utter ruin to the town and its inhabitants. Marshal
Marmont, influenced by these considerations, despatched a flag of truce
to General Barclay de Tolli, requesting a suspension of hostilities, to
arrange the terms on which Paris was to be surrendered. The armistice
was granted, on condition that Montmartre, the only defensible part of
the line which the French still continued to occupy, should be delivered
up to the allies. Deputies were appointed on both sides, to adjust the
terms of surrender. These were speedily settled. The French regular
troops were permitted to retire from Paris unmolested, and the
metropolis was next day to be delivered up to the allied sovereigns, to
whose generosity it was recommended.
Thus ended the assault of Paris, after a bloody action, in which the
defenders lost upwards of 4000 in killed and wounded; and the allies,
who had to storm well-defended batteries, redoubts, and intrenchments,
perhaps about twice the number. They remained masters of the line at all
points, and took nearly one hundred pieces of cannon. When night fell,
the multiplied and crowded watch-fires that occupied the whole chain of
heights on which the victors now bivouacked, indicated to the astonished
inhabitants of the French metropolis, how numerous and how powerful were
the armies into whose hands the fate of war had surrendered them.[22]
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Jomini, tom. iv., 564.
[13] Henry IV., act ii., scene ii.
[14] "Mon Amie, j'ai été tous les jours à cheval; le 20 j'ai pris
Arcis-sur-Aube. L'ennemi m'y attaqua à 8 heures du soir: le même soir je
l'ai battu, et lui ai fait 4000 morts: je lui ai pris 2 pieces de canon
et même repris 2: ayant quitté le 21, l'armée ennemie s'est mise, en
battaille pour protéger la marche de ses armées, sur Brienne, et sur
Bar-sur-Aube, j'ai décidé de me porter sur la Marne et ses environs afin
de la pousser plus loin de Paris, en me rapprochant de mes _places_. Je
serai ce soir à St. Dizier. Adieu, mon amie, embrassez mon fils."
[15] "General Muffling told me that the word _St. Dizier_, of so much
importance, was so badly written, that they were several hours in making
it out. Blucher forwarded the letter to Maria Louisa, with a letter in
German, saying, that as she was the daughter of a _respectable_
sovereign, who was fighting in the same cause with himself, he had sent
it to her."--_Memorable Events_, p. 98.
[16] Lord Burghersh, Observations, &c., p. 232; Baron Fain, p. 222.
[17] "At half past ten on the morning of the 29th, the Empress, in a
brown cloth riding-habit, with the King of Rome, in one coach,
surrounded by guards, and followed by several other coaches, with
attendants, quitted the palace; the spectators observing the most
profound silence."--_Memorable Events in Paris in 1814_, p. 50.
[18] Souvenirs de Mad. Durand, tom. i., p. 205.
[19] "I saw the proclamation of _Roi Joseph_ selling for a sous, on the
Boulevards, where groups of people were assembled. The flight of the
Empress caused considerable alarm. Many loudly expressed their
discontent at the national guard, for permitting her to leave Paris, as
they entertained a dastardly hope that her presence would preserve them
from the vengeance of the allies. For the first time I heard the people
openly dare to vent complaints against the Emperor, as the sole cause of
their impending calamity; but I witnessed no patriotic feeling to
repulse the enemy."--_Memorable Events_, p. 53.
[20] Lord Burghersh's account states, that the village of Pantin was
attacked, but never retaken by the French.--"Operations," p. 240.--ED.
(1842.)
[21] "Prince Joseph, observing the vast number of the enemy's troops
that had arrived at the foot of Montmartre, was convinced that the
capitulation could be no longer delayed. He gave the necessary powers to
the Duke of Ragusa; and immediately proceeded to join the government at
Blois."--BARON FAIN, p. 232.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
_State of Parties in Paris--Royalists--Revolutionists--Buonapartists
--Talleyrand--Chateaubriand--Mission to the Allied Sovereigns--Their
answer--Efforts of the Buonapartists--Feelings of the lowest
classes--of the middling ranks--Neutrality of the National
Guard--Growing confidence of the Royalists--Proclamations and White
Cockades--Crowds assemble at the Boulevards--The Allies are received
with shouts of welcome--Their Army retires to quarters--and the
Cossacks bivouac in the Champs Elysées._
The battle was fought and won; but it remained a high and doubtful
question in what way the victory was to be improved, so as to produce
results of far greater consequence than usually follow from the mere
military occupation of an enemy's capital. While the mass of the
inhabitants were at rest, exhausted by the fatigues and anxieties of the
day, many secret conclaves, on different principles, were held in the
city of Paris, upon the night after the assault. Some of these even yet
endeavoured to organise the means of resistance, and some to find out
what modern policy has called a _Mezzo-termine_, some third expedient,
between the risk of standing by Napoleon, and that of recalling the
banished family.
The only middle mode which could have succeeded, would have been a
regency under the Empress; and Fouché's Memoirs state, that if he had
been in Paris at the time, he might have succeeded in establishing a new
order of things upon such a basis. The assertion may be safely disputed.
To Austria such a plan might have had some recommendations; but to the
sovereigns and statesmen of the other allied nations, the proposal would
only have appeared a device to obtain immediate peace, and keep the
throne, as it were, in commission, that Buonaparte might ascend it at
his pleasure.[23]
[Sidenote: PARTIES IN PARIS.]
We have the greatest doubts whether, among the ancient chiefs of the
Revolution, most of whom had, as hackneyed tools, lost credit in the
public eye, both by want of principle and political inconsistency, there
remained any who could have maintained a popular interest in opposition
to that of the Royalists on the one hand, and the Buonapartists on the
other. The few who remained steady to their democratic principles,
Napoleon had discredited and thrown into the shade; and he had rendered
many of the others still more inefficient, by showing that they were
accessible to bribery and to ambition, and that ancient demagogues
could, without much trouble, be transmuted into supple and obsequious
courtiers. Their day of power and interest was past, and the exaggerated
vehemence of their democratic opinions had no longer any effect on the
lower classes, who were in a great proportion attached to the empire.
The Royalists, on the other hand, had been long combining and extending
their efforts and opinions, which gained, chiefly among the higher
orders, a sort of fashion which those of the democrats had lost.
Talleyrand was acceptable to them as himself noble by birth; and he knew
better than any one how to apply the lever to unfasten the deep
foundations of Napoleon's power. Of his address, though not successful
in the particular instance, Las Cases gives us a curious specimen.
Talleyrand desired to sound the opinion of Decrès, about the time of the
crisis of which we are treating. He drew that minister towards the
chimney, and opening a volume of Montesquieu, said, as if in the tone of
an ordinary conversation, "I found a passage here this morning, which
struck me in an extraordinary manner. Here it is, in such a book and
chapter, page so and so: _When a prince has raised himself above all
laws, when his tyranny becomes insupportable, there remains nothing to
the oppressed subject except----_"
"It is quite enough," said Decrès, placing his hand upon Talleyrand's
mouth, "I will hear no more. Shut your book." And Talleyrand closed the
book, as if nothing remarkable had happened.[24]
An agent of such extraordinary tact was not frequently baffled, in a
city, and at a time, when so many were, from hope, fear, love, hatred,
and all the other strongest passions, desirous, according to the Roman
phrase, of a new state of things. He had been unceasingly active, and
eminently successful, in convincing the Royalists, that the King must
purchase the recovery of his authority by consenting to place the
monarchy on a constitutional footing; and in persuading another class,
that the restoration of the Bourbons was the most favourable chance for
the settlement of a free system of government. Nor did this accomplished
politician limit his efforts to those who had loyalty to be awakened,
and a love of liberty to be rekindled, but extended them through a
thousand ramifications, through every class of persons. To the bold he
offered an enterprise requiring courage; to the timid (a numerous class
at the time) he showed the road of safety; to the ambitious, the
prospect of gaining power; to the guilty, the assurance of indemnity and
safety. He had inspired resolution even into the councils of the allies.
A note from him to the Emperor Alexander, in the following words, is
said to have determined that prince to persevere in the march upon
Paris. "You venture nothing," said this laconic billet, "when you may
safely venture every thing--Venture once more."
It is not to be supposed that Talleyrand wrought in this deep intrigue
without active coadjutors. The Abbé de Pradt, whose lively works have so
often given some interest to our pages, was deeply involved in the
transactions of that busy period, and advocated the cause of the
Bourbons against that of his former master. Bournonville and other
senators were engaged in the same cabals.
[Sidenote: PROCLAMATION OF THE ALLIES.]
The Royalists, on their own part, were in the highest state of activity,
and prepared to use their utmost exertions to obtain the mastery of the
public spirit. At this most critical moment all was done, by Monsieur de
Chateaubriand, which eloquence could effect, to appeal to the
affections, perhaps even the prejudices of the people, in his celebrated
pamphlet, entitled, "Of Buonaparte and the Bourbons." This vigorous and
affecting comparison between the days when France was in peace and
honour under her own monarchs, contrasted with those in which Europe
appeared in arms under her walls, had been written above a month, and
the manuscript was concealed by Madame de Chateaubriand in her bosom. It
was now privately printed. So was a proclamation by Monsieur, made in
the name of his brother, the late King of France. Finally, in a private
assembly of the principal Royalists, amongst whom were the illustrious
names of Rohan, Rochefoucault, Montmorency, and Noailles, it was
resolved to send a deputation to the allied sovereigns, to learn, if
possible, their intention. Monsieur Douhet, the gentleman intrusted with
this communication, executed his mission at the expense of considerable
personal danger, and returned into Paris with the answer, that the
allies had determined to avoid all appearance of dictating to France
respecting any family or mode of government, and that although they
would most joyfully and willingly acknowledge the Bourbons, yet it could
only be in consequence of a public declaration in their favour. At the
same time Monsieur Douhet was furnished with a proclamation of the
allies, signed Schwartzenberg, which, without mentioning the Bourbons,
was powerfully calculated to serve their cause. It declared the friendly
intention of the allies towards France, and represented the power of the
government which now oppressed them, as the only obstacle to instant
peace. The allied sovereigns, it was stated, sought but to see a
salutary government in France, who would cement the friendly union of
all nations. It belonged to the city of Paris to pronounce their
opinion, and accelerate the peace of the world.[25]
Furnished with this important document, which plainly indicated the
private wishes of the allies, the Royalists resolved to make an effort
on the morning of March 31st. It was at first designed they should
assemble five hundred gentlemen in arms; but this plan was prudently
laid aside, and they determined to relinquish all appearance of force,
and address the citizens only by means of persuasion.
In the meantime, the friends of the imperial government were not idle.
The conduct of the lower classes, during the battle on the heights, had
assumed an alarming character. For a time they had listened with a sort
of stupified terror to the distant thunders of the fight, beheld the
wounded and fugitives crowd in at the barriers, and gazed in useless
wonder on the hurried march of troops moving out in haste to reinforce
the lines. At length, the numerous crowds which assembled in the
Boulevards and, particularly in the streets near the Palais Royal,
assumed a more active appearance. There began to emerge from the suburbs
and lanes those degraded members of the community, whose slavish labour
is only relieved by coarse debauchery, invisible for the most part to
the more decent classes of society, but whom periods of public calamity
or agitation bring into view, to add to the general confusion and
terror. They gather in times of public danger, as birds of ill omen and
noxious reptiles are said to do at the rising of a tropical hurricane;
and their fellow-citizens look with equal disgust and dread upon faces
and figures, as strange to them as if they had issued from some distant
and savage land. Paris, like every great metropolis, has her share, and
more than her share, of this unwholesome population. It was the frantic
convocations of this class which had at once instigated and carried into
effect the principal horrors of the Revolution, and they seemed now
resolved to signalize its conclusion by the destruction of the capital.
Most of these banditti were under the influence of Buonaparte's police,
and were stimulated by the various arts which his emissaries employed.
At one time horsemen galloped through the crowd, exhorting them to take
arms, and assuring them that Buonaparte had already attacked the rear of
the allies. Again they were told that the King of Prussia was made
prisoner, with a column of 10,000 men. At other times, similar
emissaries, announcing that the allies had entered the suburbs, and were
sparing neither sex nor age, exhorting the citizens, by placards pasted
on the walls, to shut their shops, and prepare to defend their houses.
This invitation to make the last earthly sacrifices in behalf of a
military despot, to which Zaragossa had submitted in defence of her
national independence, was ill received by the inhabitants. A free state
has millions of necks, but a despotic government is in the situation
desired by the Imperial tyrant--it has but one. When it was obvious that
the Emperor Napoleon had lost his ascendency, no shop-keeper in Paris
was fool enough to risk, in his cause, his shop, his family, and his
life, or to consent to measures for preserving the capital, which were
to commence by abandoning to the allied troops, and the scum of their
own population, all that was, to him individually, worth fighting for.
The placards we have mentioned were pulled down, therefore, as fast as
they were pasted up; and there was an evident disposition, on the part
of the better class of citizens and the national guards, to discourage
all counsels which tended to stimulate resistance to the desperate
extremity therein recommended.
Nevertheless, the state of the capital continued very alarming, the
lower classes exhibiting alternately the symptoms of panic terror, of
fury, and of despair. They demanded arms, of which a few were
distributed to them; and there is no doubt, that had Napoleon arrived
among them in the struggle, there would have been a dreadful battle, in
which Paris, in all probability, would have shared the fate of Moscow.
But when the cannonade ceased, when the flight of Joseph, and the
capitulation of the city became publicly known, this conflict of jarring
passions died away into silence, and the imperturbable and impassive
composure of the national guard maintained the absolute tranquillity of
the metropolis.
On the morning of the 31st, the Royalists were seen in groups in the
Place Louis Quinze, the Garden of the Tuileries, the Boulevards, and
other public places. They distributed the proclamations of the allies,
and raised the long-forgotten cry of _Vive le Roi!_ At first, none save
those engaged in the perilous experiment, durst echo back a signal so
dangerous; but by degrees the crowds increased, the leaders got on
horseback, and distributed white cockades, lilies, and other emblems of
loyalty, displaying banners, at the same time, made out of their own
handkerchiefs. The ladies of their party came to their assistance. The
Princess of Leon, Vicomtesse of Chateaubriand, Comtesse of Choiseuil,
and other women of rank, joined the procession, distributing on all
hands the emblems of their party, and tearing their dress to make white
cockades, when the regular stock was exhausted. The better class of the
bourgeois began to catch the flame, and remembered their old royalist
opinions, and by whom they were defeated on the celebrated day of the
Sections, when Buonaparte laid the foundation of his fame in the
discomfiture of the national guard. Whole pickets began to adopt the
white, instead of the three-coloured cockade; yet the voices were far
from unanimous, and, on many points, parties of different principles met
and skirmished together in the streets. But the tendency to discord was
diverted, and the attention of the Parisians, of all classes and
opinions, suddenly fixed upon the imposing and terrible spectacle of the
army of the allies, which now began to enter the city.
[Sidenote: ENTRANCE OF THE ALLIES.]
The sovereigns had previously received, at the village of Pantin, the
magistrates of Paris, and Alexander had expressed himself in language
still more explicit than that of their proclamation. He made war, he
said, on Napoleon alone; one who had been his friend, but relinquished
that character to become his enemy, and inflict on his empire great
evils. He was not, however, come to retaliate those injuries, but to
make a secure peace with any government which France might select for
herself. "I am at peace," said the Emperor, "with France, and at war
with Napoleon alone."
These gracious expressions were received with the more gratitude by the
citizens of Paris, that they had been taught to consider the Russian
prince as a barbarous and vindictive enemy. The measure of restoring the
Bourbons seemed now to be regarded by almost every one, not particularly
connected with the dynasty of Napoleon, like a haven on the leeward,
unexpectedly open to a tempest-tossed and endangered vessel. There was
no loss of honour in adopting it, since the French received back their
own royal family--there was no compulsion, since they received them upon
their own free choice. They escaped from a great and imminent danger, as
if it had been by a bridge of gold.
An immense crowd filled the Boulevards (a large wide open promenade,
which, under a variety of distinctive names, forms a circuit round the
city,) in order to witness the entrance of the allied sovereigns and
their army, whom, in the succession of four-and-twenty hours, this
mutable people were disposed to regard as friends rather than enemies--a
disposition which increased until it amounted to enthusiasm for the
persons of those princes, against whom a bloody battle had been fought
yesterday under the walls of Paris, in evidence of which mortal strife,
there still remained blackening in the sun the unburied thousands who
had fallen on both sides. There was in this a trait of national
character. A Frenchman submits with a good grace, and apparent or real
complaisance, to that which he cannot help; and it is not the least
advantage of his philosophy, that it entitles him afterwards to plead,
that his submission flowed entirely from good-will, and not from
constraint. Many of those who, on the preceding day, were forced to fly
from the heights which defend Paris, thought themselves at liberty next
morning to maintain, that the allies had entered the capital only by
their consent and permission, because they had joined in the plaudits
which accompanied their arrival. To vindicate, therefore, their city
from the disgrace of being entered by force, as well as giving way to
the real enthusiasm which was suddenly inspired by the exchange of the
worst evils which a conquered people have to dread for the promised
blessings of an honourable peace and internal concord, the Parisians
received the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia with such general
and unremitting plaudits, as might have accompanied their triumphal
entrance into their own capitals. Even at their first entrance within
the barriers, we learn from Sir Charles Stewart's official despatch,[26]
the crowd was already so enormous, as well as the acclamations so great,
that it was difficult to move forward; but before the monarchs had
reached the porte St. Martin to turn on the Boulevards, there was a
moral impossibility of proceeding; all Paris seemed to be assembled and
concentrated in one spot--one spring evidently directed all their
movements. They thronged around the monarchs, with the most unanimous
shouts of "_Vive l'Empereur Alexandre!_--_Vive le Roi de Prusse!_"
mingled with the loyal exclamations, "_Vive le Roi!_--_Vive Louis
XVIII.!_--_Vivent les Bourbons!_" To such unexpected unanimity might be
applied the words of Scripture, quoted by Clarendon on a similar
occasion--"God had prepared the people, for the thing was done
suddenly." The procession lasted several hours, during which 50,000
chosen troops of the Silesian and grand army filed along the Boulevards
in broad and deep columns, exhibiting a whole forest of bayonets,
mingled with long trains of artillery, and preceded by numerous
regiments of cavalry of every description. Nothing surprised those who
witnessed this magnificent spectacle, more than the high state of good
order and regular equipment in which the men and horses appeared. They
seemed rather to resemble troops drawn from peaceful quarters to some
grand or solemn festival, than regiments engaged during a long winter
campaign in constant marches and countermarches, as well as in a
succession of the fiercest and most sanguinary conflicts, and who had
fought a general action but the day before.[27] After making the circuit
of half of Paris by the interior Boulevards, the monarchs halted in the
Champs Elysées, and the troops passed in review before them as they were
dismissed to their quarters in the city. The Cossacks of the guard
established their bivouac in the Champs Elysées themselves, which may be
termed the Hyde Park of Paris, and which was thus converted into a
Scythian encampment.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] "During the battle, the Boulevards des Italiens, and the Caffé
Tortoni, were thronged with fashionable loungers of both sexes, sitting
as usual on the chairs placed there, and appearing almost uninterested
spectators of the number of wounded French, and prisoners of the allies
which were brought in. About two o'clock, a general cry of _sauve qui
peut_ was heard on the Boulevards; this caused a general and confused
flight, which spread like the undulations of a wave, even beyond the
Pont Neuf. During the whole of the battle, wounded soldiers crawled into
the streets, and lay down to die on the pavement. The _Moniteur_ of this
day was a full sheet; but no notice was taken of the war or the army.
Four columns were occupied by an article on the dramatic works of Denis,
and three with a dissertation on the existence of Troy."--_Memorable
Events_, pp. 90-93.
[23] The passage is curious, whether we regard it as really emanating
from Fouché, or placed in the mouth of that active revolutionist by some
one who well understood the genius of the party. "Had I been at Paris at
that time," (the period of the siege, namely,) "the weight of my
influence, doubtless, and my perfect acquaintance with the secrets of
every party, would have enabled me to give these extraordinary events a
very different direction. My preponderance, and the promptness of my
decision, would have predominated over the more slow and mysterious
influence of Talleyrand. That elevated personage could not have made his
way unless we had been harnessed to the same car. I would have revealed
to him the ramifications of my political plan, and, in spite of the
odious policy of Savary, the ridiculous government of Cambacérès, the
lieutenancy of the puppet Joseph, and the base spirit of the Senate, we
would have breathed new life into the carcase of the Revolution, and
these degraded patricians would not have thought of acting exclusively
for their own interests. By our united impulse, we would have pronounced
before the interference of any foreign influence, the dethronement of
Napoleon, and proclaimed the Regency, of which I had already traced the
basis. This conclusion was the only one which could have preserved the
Revolution and its principles."--_Mémoires_, tom. ii., p. 229.
[24] Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 251.
[25] London Gazette, April 5.--"Early in the morning of the 31st March,
before the barriers, were open, the soldiers of the allied army climbed
up the pallisades of the barrier Rochechouard to look into Paris. They
threw this proclamation over the wall, and through the iron
gates."--_Memorable Events_, p. 124.
[26] London Gazette Extraordinary, April 9.
[27] "This magnificent pageant far surpassed any idea I had formed of
military pomp. The cavalry were fifteen abreast, the artillery five, and
the infantry thirty. All the men were remarkably clean, healthy, and
well clothed. The bands of music were very fine. The people, astonished
at the prodigious number of troops, repeatedly exclaimed, 'Oh! how we
have been deceived.'"--_Memorable Events_, p. 106.
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
_Fears of the Parisians--Proceedings of Napoleon--Operations of the
French Cavalry in rear of the Allies--Capture of Weissemberg--The
Emperor Francis is nearly surprised--Napoleon reaches Troyes on the
night of the 29th March--Opinion of Macdonald as to the possibility
of relieving Paris--Napoleon leaves Troyes, on the 30th, and meets
Belliard, a few miles from Paris, in full retreat--Conversation
betwixt them--He determines to proceed to Paris, but is at length
dissuaded--and despatches Caulaincourt to receive terms from the
Allied Sovereigns--He himself returns to Fontainbleau._
[Sidenote: FEARS OF THE PARISIANS.]
When the enthusiasm attending the entrance of the allies, which had
converted a day of degradation into one of joy and festivity, began to
subside, the perilous question occurred to those who found themselves
suddenly embarked in a new revolution, Where were Napoleon and his army,
and what means did his active and enterprising genius possess of still
re-establishing his affairs, and taking vengeance on his revolted
capital? That terrible and evil spirit, who had so long haunted their
very dreams, and who had been well termed the nightmare of Europe, was
not yet conjured down, though for the present he exercised his ministry
elsewhere. All trembled for the consequence of his suddenly returning in
full force, combined either with the troops of Augereau, or with the
garrisons withdrawn from the frontier fortresses. But their fears were
without foundation; for, though he was not personally distant, his
powers of inflicting vengeance were now limited. We proceed to trace
his progress after his movement eastward, from the neighbourhood of
Vitry to St. Dizier, which had permitted the union of the two allied
armies.
Here he was joined by Caulaincourt, who had to inform him of the
dissolution of the Congress at Chatillon, with the addition, that he had
not received his instructions from Rheims, until the diplomatists had
departed. Those subsequently despatched by Count Frochot, he had not
received at all.
Meanwhile, Napoleon's cavalry commenced the proposed operations in the
rear of the allies, and made prisoners some persons of consequence, who
were travelling, as they supposed, in perfect security, between Troyes
and Dijon. Among these was Baron Weissemberg, who had long been the
Austrian envoy at the court of London. The Emperor Francis was nearly
surprised in person by the French light troops. He was obliged to fly in
a _drosky_, a Russian carriage, attended only by two domestics, from
Bar-sur-Aube to Chatillon, and from thence he retreated to Dijon![28]
Napoleon showed every civility to his prisoner, Weissemberg, and
despatched him to the Emperor of Austria, to solicit once more his
favourable interference. The person of the present King of France[29]
(then Monsieur) would have been a yet more important capture, but the
forays of the light cavalry did not penetrate so far as to endanger him.
On the 24th March, Napoleon halted at Doulevent, to concentrate his
forces, and gain intelligence. He remained there also on the 25th, and
employed his time in consulting his maps, and dictating new instructions
for Caulaincourt, by which he empowered him to make every cession. But
the hour of safety was past. Upon the morning of the 26th, Napoleon was
roused by the intelligence, that the allies had attacked the rear of his
army under Macdonald, near St. Dizier. He instantly hastened to the
support of the maréchal, concluding that his own scheme had been
successful, and that his retreat to the eastward had drawn after him the
grand army of the allies. The allies showed a great number of cavalry
with flying guns, but no infantry. Napoleon ordered an attack on them,
in which the French were successful, the allies falling back after
slight opposition. He learned from the prisoners, that he had been
engaged, not with Schwartzenberg, but with Blucher's troops. This was
strange intelligence. He had left Blucher threatening Meaux, and now he
found his army on the verge of Lorraine.
On the 27th, by pushing a reconnoitring party as far west as Vitry,
Napoleon learned the real state of the case; that both the allied armies
had marched upon Paris; and that the cavalry with which he had
skirmished were 10,000 men, under Winzengerode, left behind by the
allies as a curtain to screen their motions, and engage his attention.
Every word in this news had a sting in it. To hasten after the allies,
to surprise them, if possible, ere the cannon on Montmartre were yet
silenced, was the most urgent thought that ever actuated the mind even
of Napoleon, so accustomed to high and desperate risks. But the direct
route on Paris had been totally exhausted of provision, by the march and
countermarch of such large armies. It was necessary to go round by
Troyes, and, for that purpose, to retrograde as far as Doulevent. Here
he received a small billet in cipher, from the postmaster-general, La
Valette, the first official communication he had got from the capital
during ten days. "The partisans of the stranger," these were the
contents, "are making head, seconded by secret intrigues. The presence
of Napoleon is indispensable, if he desires to prevent his capital from
being delivered to the enemy. There is not a moment to be lost."[30] The
march was precipitated accordingly.
[Sidenote: DOULANCOURT--TROYES.]
At the bridge of Doulancourt, on the banks of the Aube, the Emperor
received despatches, informing him that an assault on Paris was hourly
be expected. Napoleon dismissed his aide-de-camp, Dejean, to ride post
to Paris, and spread the news of his speedy arrival. He gave him two
bulletins, describing in extravagant colours a pretended victory at
Arcis, and the skirmish at St. Dizier. He then advanced to Troyes, which
he reached on that same night (29th March,) the imperial guard marching
fifteen leagues in one day. On the 30th, Maréchal Macdonald gave to
Berthier the following sound and striking opinion:--"It is too late," he
said, "to relieve Paris; at least by the route we follow. The distance
is fifty leagues; to be accomplished by forced marches, it will require
at least four days; and then in what condition for combat is the army
like to arrive, for there are no depôts, or magazines, after leaving
Bar-sur-Seine. The allies being yesterday at Meaux, must have pushed
their advanced guards up to the barriers by this time. There is no good
reason to hope that the united corps of the Dukes of Treviso and Ragusa
could check them long enough to allow us to come up. Besides, at our
approach, the allies will not fail to defend the passage of the Marne. I
am then of opinion, that if Paris fall under the power of the enemy, the
Emperor should direct his march on Sens, in order to retreat upon
Augereau, unite our forces with his, and, after having reposed our
troops, give the enemy battle on a chosen field. If Providence has then
decreed our last hour, we will at least die with honour, instead of
being dispersed, pillaged, taken, and slaughtered by Cossacks."
Napoleon's anxiety for the fate of his capital, did not permit him to
hearken to this advice; though it seems the best calculated to have
placed him in a condition, either to make a composition with the allies,
or to carry on a formidable war in their rear.
From Troyes, Napoleon despatched to Paris another aide-de-camp, General
Girardin, who is said to have carried orders for defending the city to
the last, and at all risks--an accusation, however, which, considering
the mass of unimaginable mischief that such an order must have involved,
is not to be received without more proof than we have been able to
obtain.
On the 30th March, Napoleon left Troyes, and, finding the road entirely
unoccupied by the enemy, threw himself into a post-carriage, and
travelled on at full speed before his army, with a very slight
attendance. Having in this way reached Villeneuve L'Archeveque, he rode
to Fontainbleau on horseback, and though it was then night, took a
carriage for Paris, Berthier and Caulaincourt accompanying him. On
reaching an inn, called La Cour de France, at a few miles' distance from
Paris, he at length met ample proof of his misfortune in the person of
General Belliard, with his cavalry. The fatal intelligence was
communicated.
[Sidenote: CONVERSATION WITH BELLIARD.]
Leaping from his carriage, Napoleon turned back with Belliard,
exclaiming--"What means this? Why here with your cavalry, Belliard? And
where are the enemy?"--"At the gates of Paris."--"And the army?"--"It is
following me."--"Where are my wife and son?--Where Marmont?--Where
Mortier?"--"The Empress set out for Rambouillet, and thence for Orleans.
The maréchals are busy completing their arrangements at Paris." He then
gave an account of the battle; and Napoleon instantly ordered his
carriage for Paris. They had already proceeded a mile and a half on the
road. The same conversation proceeded, and we give it as preserved,
because it marks the character of the principal personage, and the tone
of his feeling, much better than these can be collected from his
expressions upon more formal occasions, and when he had in view some
particular purpose.[31]
General Belliard reminded him there were no longer any troops in Paris.
"It matters not," said Napoleon; "I will find the national guard there.
The army will join me to-morrow, or the day after, and I will put things
on a proper footing."--"But I must repeat to your Majesty, you cannot go
to Paris. The national guard, in virtue of the treaty, mount guard at
the barriers, and though the allies are not to enter till seven o'clock
in the morning, it is possible they may have found their way to the
outposts, and that your Majesty may find Russian or Prussian parties at
the gates, or on the Boulevards."--"It is all one--I am determined to go
there--My carriage!--Follow me with your cavalry."--"But, Sire, your
Majesty will expose Paris to the risk of storm or pillage. More than
20,000 men are in possession of the heights--for myself, I have left
the city in consequence of a convention, and cannot therefore
return."--"What is that convention? who has concluded it?"--"I cannot
tell, Sire; I only know from the Duke of Treviso that such exists, and
that I must march to Fontainbleau."--"What is Joseph about?--Where is
the minister at war?"--"I do not know; we have received orders from
neither of them during the whole day. Each maréchal acted on his own
responsibility. They have not been seen to-day with the army--At least
not with the Duke of Treviso's corps."--"Come, we must to Paris--nothing
goes right when I am absent--they do nothing but make blunders."
Berthier and Caulaincourt joined in trying to divert the Emperor from
his purpose. He never ceased demanding his carriage. Caulaincourt
announced it, but it did not come up. Napoleon strode on with hurried
and unequal steps, asking repeated questions concerning what had been
already explained. "You should have held out longer," he said, "and
tried to wait for the arrival of the army. You should have raised Paris,
which cannot surely like the entrance of the Russians. You should have
put in motion the national guard, whose disposition is good, and
intrusted to them the defence of the fortifications which the minister
has caused to be erected, and which are well furnished with artillery.
Surely the citizens could have defended these, while the troops of the
line fought upon the heights and in the plain?"--"I repeat to you, Sire,
that it was impossible. The army of 15,000 or 18,000 men has resisted
one of 100,000 for four hours, expecting your arrival. There was a
report of it in the city, which spread to the troops. They redoubled
their exertions. The national guard has behaved extremely well, both as
sharpshooters and in defence of the wretched redoubts which protected
the barriers."--"It is astonishing. How many cavalry had
you?"--"Eighteen hundred horse, Sire, including the brigade of
Dautencour."--"Montmartre, well fortified and defended by heavy cannon,
should have been impregnable."--"Luckily, Sire, the enemy were of your
opinion, and approached the heights with much caution. But there was no
occasion, we had not above seven six-pounders."--"What can they have
made of my artillery? I ought to have had more than two hundred guns,
and ammunition to serve them for a month."--"The truth is, Sire, that we
had only field-artillery, and at two o'clock we were obliged to slacken
our fire for want of ammunition."--"Go, go--I see every one has lost
their senses. This comes of employing people who have neither common
sense nor energy. Well! Joseph imagines himself capable of conducting an
army; and Clarke, a mere piece of routine, gives himself the airs of a
great minister; but the one is no better than a fool, and the other a
---- ----, or a traitor, for I begin to believe what Savary said of
him."--The conversation going on in this manner, they had advanced a
mile farther from the Cour de France, when they met a body of infantry
under General Curial. Napoleon inquired after the Duke of Treviso, to
whose corps d'armée they belonged, and was informed he was still at
Paris.
It was then, that on the pressing remonstrances of his officers, who saw
that in going on to Paris he was only rushing on death or captivity,
Napoleon at length turned back; and having abandoned the strong
inflexible impulse which would have carried him thither at all
adventures, he seems to have considered his fate as decided, or at least
to have relaxed considerably in the original vehemence which he opposed
to adversity.
He returned to the Cour de France, and gave orders for disposing the
forces, as they should come up, on the heights of Longjumeau, behind the
little river of Essonne. Desirous at the same time of renewing the
negotiation for peace, which, on successes of an ephemeral description,
he had broken off at Chatillon, Napoleon despatched Caulaincourt to
Paris, no longer to negotiate, but to receive and submit to such terms
as the allied sovereigns might be inclined to impose upon him. He
returned to Fontainbleau the same night. He did not take possession of
any of the rooms of state, but chose a private and more retired
apartment. Among the many strange transactions which had taken place in
that venerable and ancient palace, its halls were now to witness one the
most extraordinary.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Sir Robert Wilson, Sketch of the Military and Political Power of
Russia, p. 90.
[29] Charles X.
[30] Baron Fain, p. 227.
[31] It is taken from a work which has remarkable traces of
authenticity, General Koch's _Mémoires, pour servir à l'Histoire de la
Campagne de 1814_. See also, _Memoirs of the Operations of the Allied
Armies_, already quoted, p. 208.--S.
CHAPTER LXXIX.
_The Allied Sovereigns issue a Proclamation that they will not treat
with Buonaparte--A Provisional Government is named by the
Conservative Senate, who also decree the forfeiture of
Napoleon--This decree is sanctioned by all the Public Bodies in
Paris--The legality of these proceedings discussed--Feelings towards
Napoleon, of the Lower Classes, and of the Military--On 4th April,
Buonaparte issues a document abdicating the Throne of France--His
subsequent agitation, and wish to continue the war--The deed is
finally despatched._
While Napoleon breathed nothing save the desire of recovering by war
what war had taken from him, or at least that of making such a peace as
should leave him at the head of the French government, political events
were taking place in Paris which pointed directly at the overthrow of
his power.
His great military talents, together with his extreme inflexibility of
temper, had firmly impressed the allied monarchs with the belief, that
no lasting peace could be made in Europe while he remained at the head
of the French nation. Every concession which he had seemed willing to
make at different times, had been wrung from him by increasing
difficulties, and was yielded with such extreme reluctance, as to infer
the strongest suspicion that they would all be again resumed, should
the league of the allies be dissolved, or their means of opposing his
purposes become weaker. When, therefore, Caulaincourt came to Paris on
the part of his master, with power to subscribe to all and each of the
demands made by the allies, he was not indeed explicitly refused
audience; but, before he was admitted to a conference with the Emperor
Alexander, to whom his mission was addressed, the sovereigns had come
under engagements which precluded them altogether from treating with
Napoleon.[32]
When the Emperor of Russia halted, after the progress of the allied
sovereigns through the city, it was at the hotel of Talleyrand. He was
scarcely arrived there ere the principal Royalists, and those who had
acted with them, waited on him to crave an audience. Besides the Emperor
Alexander, the King of Prussia, and Prince Schwartzenberg, were present
General Pozzo di Borgo, Nesselrode, Lichtenstein, the Duke Dalberg,
Baron Louis, the Abbé de Pradt, and others. Three points were discussed,
1st, The possibility of a peace with Napoleon, upon sufficient
guarantees; 2d, The plan of a regency; 3d, The restoration of the
Bourbons.
[Sidenote: PROCLAMATION OF THE ALLIES.]
The first proposition seemed inadmissible. The second was carefully
considered. It was particularly urged that the French were indifferent
to the cause of the Bourbons--that the allied monarchs would observe no
mark of recollection of them exhibited by the people of France--and that
the army seemed particularly averse to them. The united testimony of the
French gentlemen present was offered to repel these doubts; and it was
at length agreed, that the third proposition--the restoration of the
ancient family, and the ancient limits--should be the terms adopted for
the settlement of France.[33] A proclamation was immediately dispersed,
by which the sovereigns made known their determination not to treat with
Buonaparte or any of his family.[34]
But more formal evidence, in the shape of legal procedure, was necessary
to establish the desire of the French people to coincide in the proposed
change of government. The public body which ought naturally to have
taken the lead on such an important affair, was the Legislative
Assembly, in whom Napoleon's constitution vested some ostensible right
of interference when the state was in danger; but so far had the Emperor
been from recognising such a power in practice, that the instant when
the Assembly assumed the right of remonstrating with him, though in the
most respectful terms, he suspended their functions, and spurned them
from the footstool of his throne, informing them, that not they, but HE,
was the representative of the people, from whom there lay no appeal, and
besides whom, no body in the state possessed power and efficacy. This
legislative council, therefore, being dispersed and prorogued, could not
take the initiative upon the present occasion.
The searching genius of Talleyrand sought an organ of public opinion
where few would have looked for it--in the Conservative Senate, namely,
whose members had been so long the tools of Buonaparte's wildest
projects, and the echoes of his most despotic decrees--that very body,
of which he himself said, with equal bitterness and truth, that they
were more eager to yield up national rights than he had been to demand
the surrender, and that a sign from him had always been an order for the
Senate, who hastened uniformly to anticipate and exceed his demands. Yet
when, on the summons of Talleyrand, who knew well with whom he was
dealing, this Senate was convoked, in a meeting attended by sixty-six of
their number, forming a majority of the body, they at once, and without
hesitation, named a Provisional Government, consisting of Talleyrand,
Bournonville, Jaucourt, Dalberg, and the Abbé de Montesquieu; men
recommended by talents and moderation, and whose names, known in the
Revolution, might, at the same time, be a guarantee to those who dreaded
a renovation of the old despotic government with the restoration of the
ancient race of kings.
[Sidenote: DECREE OF FORFEITURE.]
On the 2d and 3d of April the axe was laid to the roots. A decree of the
Senate sent forth the following statement:--1st, That Napoleon, after
governing for some time with prudence and wisdom, had violated the
constitution, by raising taxes in an arbitrary and lawless manner,
contrary to the tenor of his oath.--2d, That he had adjourned without
necessity the Legislative Body, and suppressed a report of that
assembly, besides disowning its right to represent the people.--3d, That
he had published several unconstitutional decrees, particularly those of
5th March last, by which he endeavoured to render national a war, in
which his own ambition alone was interested.--4th, That he had violated
the constitution by his decrees respecting state prisons.--5th, That he
had abolished the responsibility of ministers, confounded together the
different powers of the state, and destroyed the independence of
judicial authorities.--6th, That the liberty of the press, constituting
one of the rights of the nation, had been uniformly subjected to the
arbitrary censure of his police; while, at the same time, he himself had
made use of the same engine to fill the public ear with invented
fictions, false maxims, doctrines favourable to despotism, and insults
upon foreign governments.--7th, That he had caused acts and reports,
adopted by the Senate, to be altered by his own authority, before
publication.--8th, That instead of reigning, according to his oath, for
the honour, happiness, and glory of the French nation, he had put the
finishing stroke to the distresses of the country, by a refusal to treat
on honourable conditions--by the abuse which he had made of the means
intrusted to him, in men and money--by abandoning the wounded, without
dressing or sustenance--and by pursuing measures of which the
consequences have been the ruin of towns, the depopulation of the
country, famine and pestilence. From all these inductive causes, the
Senate, considering that the Imperial government, established by the
decree of 28th Floreal, in the year XII., had ceased to exist, and that
the manifest desire of all Frenchmen was to obtain an order of things,
of which the first result should be peace and concord among the great
members of the European family: Therefore, the Senate declared and
decreed, 1st, That Napoleon Buonaparte had forfeited the throne, and the
right of inheritance established in his family.--2d, That the people and
army of France were disengaged and freed from the oath of fidelity,
which they had taken to Napoleon and his constitution.[35]
[Sidenote: DECLARATIONS OF PUBLIC BODIES.]
About eighty members of the Legislative Body, at the summons of the
Provisional Government, assembled on the 3d April, and formally adhered
to the above decree of forfeiture. The consequences of these bold
measures showed, either that Napoleon had in reality never had more than
a slight hold on the affections of the people of France, or that the
interest they took in his fortunes had been in a great degree destroyed
by the fears and passions excited by the immediate crisis. Even before
the Senate could reduce its decree into form, the council-general of the
department of the Seine had renounced Napoleon's authority, and imputed
to him alone the present disastrous state of the country. The decree of
the Senate was followed by declarations from all the public bodies in
and around Paris, that they adhered to the Provisional Government, and
acquiesced in the decree of forfeiture. Numerous individuals, who had
been favoured and enriched by Buonaparte, were among the first to join
the tide when it set against him. But it had been always his policy to
acquire adherents, by addressing himself rather to men's interests than
to their principles; and many of his friends so gained, naturally became
examples of the politic observation, "that if a prince places men in
wealthy circumstances, the first thing they think of, in danger, is how
to preserve the advantages they have obtained, without regard to his
fate to whom they owe them."
We do not believe that it occurred to any person while these events were
passing, to question either the formality or the justice of the doom of
forfeiture against Napoleon; but Time has called out many authors, who,
gained by the brilliancy of Napoleon's reputation, and some of them
bound to him by ties of gratitude or friendship, have impugned, more or
less directly, the formality of the Senate's procedure, as well as the
justice of their sentence. We, therefore, feel it our duty to bestow
some consideration upon this remarkable event in both points of view.
The objection proposed against the legality of the Senate's acting as
the organ of the people, in pronouncing the doom of forfeiture, rests
upon the idea, that the right of dethroning the sovereign, who shall be
guilty of oppression beyond endurance, can only be exercised in a
peculiar and formal manner, or, as our law-phrase goes, "according to
the statute made and provided in that case." This seems to take a narrow
view of the subject. The right of redressing themselves under such
circumstances, does not belong to, and is not limited by, any peculiar
forms of civil government. It is a right which belongs to human nature
under all systems whatever. It exists in every government under the sun,
from that of the Dey of Algiers to the most free republic that ever was
constructed. There is, indeed, much greater latitude for the exercise of
arbitrary authority in some governments than in others. An Emperor of
Morocco may, with impunity, bathe his hands to the elbows in the blood
of his subjects shed by his own hand; but even in this the most absolute
of despotisms, there are peculiar limits which cannot be passed by the
sovereign without the exercise of the natural right of resistance on the
part of his subjects, although their system of government be as
arbitrary as words can declare it to be, and the Emperor is frequently
dethroned and slain by his own guards.
In limited governments, on the other hand, like that of Great Britain,
the law imposes bounds, beyond which the royal authority shall not pass;
but it makes no provision for what shall take place, should a monarch,
as in the case of James II., transgress the social compact. The
constitution averts its eyes from contemplating such an event--indeed it
is pronounced impossible; and when the emergency did arrive, and its
extrication became a matter of indispensable necessity, it was met and
dealt with as a concurrence of circumstances which had not happened
before, and ought never to be regarded as being possible to occur again.
The foreigner who peruses our constitution for the forms of procedure
competent in such an event as the Revolution, might as well look in a
turnpike act for directions how to proceed in a case resembling that of
Phaeton.
If the mode of shaking off an oppressive yoke, by declaring the monarchy
abdicated or forfeited, be not a fixed form in a regular government, but
left to be provided for by a convention or otherwise, as a case so
calamitous and so anomalous should demand, far less was it to be
supposed that a constitution like that of France, which Buonaparte had
studiously deprived of every power and means of checking the executive,
should contain a regular form of process for declaring the crown
forfeited. He had been as careful as despot could, to leave no bar in
existence before which the public might arraign him; but will it be
contended, that the public had therefore forfeited its natural right of
accusing and of obtaining redress? If he had rendered the Senate the
tame drudges which we have described, and prorogued the Legislative Body
by an arbitrary _coup d'état_, was he therefore to escape the penalty of
his misgovernment? On the contrary, the nation of France, like Great
Britain at the time of the Revolution 1688, was to proceed as it best
could in taking care, _Ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat_. The Senate
was not, perhaps, the best organ for expressing public opinion, but it
was the only one Napoleon had left within reach, and therefore it was
seized upon and made use of. That it was composed of men who had so long
gone on with Napoleon's interest, and now were able to keep up in course
with him no longer, made his misrule even yet more glaring, and the
necessity of the case more evident.
It is of far more importance to be enabled to form an accurate judgment
respecting the _justice_ of the sentence of forfeiture pronounced
against this eminent man, than upon its mere formality. That we may
examine this question with the impartiality it deserves, we must look
upon it not only divested of our feelings as Britons, but as unconnected
with the partisans either of the Bourbons or of Buonaparte. With these
last there could be no room either for inquiry or conviction. The
Royalist must have been convinced that Napoleon deserved, not
deprivation only, but death also, for usurping the throne of his
rightful sovereign; and the Buonapartist, on the other hand, would hold
it cowardly treason to desert the valiant Emperor, who had raised France
to such a state of splendour by his victories, more especially to
forsake him in the instant when Fortune was looking black upon his
cause. There could be no argument between these men, save with their
good swords in a fair field.
But such decided sentiments were not entertained upon the part of the
great bulk of the French nation. A large number of the middle classes,
in particular, remembering the first terrors of the Revolution, had
showed their willingness to submit to the yoke which gradually assumed a
despotic character, rather than, by a renewed struggle for their
liberties, to run the risk of reviving the days of Terror and
Proscription. It is in the person of such an individual, desirous of the
honour and advantage of his country, and anxious at the same time for
the protection of his own family and property, that we now endeavour to
consider the question of Napoleon's forfeiture.
The mind of such a person would naturally revert to the period when
Buonaparte, just returned from Egypt, appeared on the stage like a deity
descending to unloose a perplexing knot, which no human ingenuity could
extricate. Our citizen would probably admit, that Napoleon used the
sword a little too freely in severing the intricacies of the noose; or,
in plain words, that the cashiering the Council of Five Hundred, at the
head of his grenadiers, was an awkward mode of ascending to power in a
country which still called itself free. This feeling, however, would be
greatly overbalanced by recollecting the use which was made of the power
thus acquired; the subjugation, to wit, of foreign enemies, the
extinction of civil dissensions, the protection of property, and, for a
time, of personal liberty also. Napoleon's having elevated France from
the condition of a divided and depressed country, in the immediate
apprehension of invasion, into that of arbitress of Europe, would at
once justify committing the chief authority to such able hands, and
excuse the means he had used for attaining it; especially in times when
the violent and successive changes under which they had long suffered,
had made the nation insensible to irregularities like those attached to
the revolution of the 18th Brumaire. Neither would our citizens probably
be much shocked at Napoleon's assuming the crown. Monarchy was the
ancient government of France, and successive changes had served to show
that they could not fix on any other form of constitution, labour how
they would, which was endowed with the same degree of permanence. The
Bourbons had, indeed, the claim by birth to mount that throne, were it
to be again erected. But they were in exile, separated by civil war,
party prejudices, the risk of reaction, and a thousand other
difficulties, which seemed at the time absolutely insurmountable.
Buonaparte was standing under the canopy, he grasped the regal sceptre
in his hand, his assuming the royal seat passed almost as a matter of
course.
Our supposed Parisian has next to review a course of years of such
brilliancy as to baffle criticism, and charm reason to silence, till the
undertakings of the Emperor seem to rise above each other in wonder,
each being a step towards the completion of that stupendous pyramid, of
which the gradations were to be formed by conquered provinces, until the
refractory and contumacious isle of Britain should be added to complete
the pile, on the top of which was destined to stand the armed form of
Napoleon, trampling the world under his foot. This is the noble work
which France and her monarch were in the act of achieving. It requires
the sacrifice of children or relatives to fill their ranks; they go
where Honour calls, and Victory awaits them. These times, however, are
overclouded; there come tidings that the stone heaved by such portentous
exertion so high up the hill, has at length recoiled on him who laboured
to give it a course contrary to nature. It is then that the real quality
of the fetters, hitherto gilded over by success, begins to be felt, and
the iron enters into the soul. The parent must not weep aloud for the
child--the Emperor required his service;--the patriot must not speak a
word on public affairs--the dungeon waits for him.
While news of fresh disasters from Spain and Moscow were every day
arriving, what comfort could a citizen of France find in adverting to
past victories? These had brought on France the hatred of Europe, the
tears of families, the ruin of fortunes, general invasion, and wellnigh
national bankruptcy. Every year had the children of France undergone
decimation--taxes to the amount of fifteen hundred millions of francs
yearly, had succeeded to the four hundred millions imposed under the
reign of the Bourbons--the few remaining ships of France rotted in her
harbours--her bravest children were slaughtered on their native soil--a
civil war was on the point of breaking out--one half of France was
overrun by the foreign enemy. Was this most melancholy state of the
country brought about in defending strongly, but unfortunately, any of
the rights of France? No--she might have enjoyed her triumphs in the
most profound peace. Two wars with Spain and Russia, which gave fire to
this dreadful train of calamities, were waged for no national or
reasonable object, but merely because one half of Europe could not
satisfy the ambition of one man. Again, our citizen inquires, whether,
having committed the dreadful error of commencing these wars, the
Emperor has endeavoured to make peace with the parties injured? He is
answered, that repeated terms of peace have been offered to Napoleon,
upon condition of ceding his conquests, but that he had preferred
hazarding the kingdom of France, to yielding up that which he termed his
_glory_, a term which he successively conferred on whatever possession
he was required to surrender; that even at Chatillon, many days passed
when he might have redeemed himself by consenting that France should be
reduced within the limits which she enjoyed under the Bourbons; but that
the proposal when half admitted, had been retracted by him in
consequence of some transient success; and finally, that in consequence
of his intractability and obstinacy, the allied sovereigns had solemnly
declared they would not enter into treaty with him, or those who acted
with him. Our citizen would naturally look about for some means of
escaping the impending danger, and would be informed that the peace
which the allied princes refused to Buonaparte, they held out with ready
hand to the kingdom of France under any other government. He would learn
that if these terms were accepted, there was every prospect that a
secure and lasting peace would ensue; if refused, the inevitable
consequence would be a battle between two large armies fought under the
walls of Paris, which city was almost certain to be burnt, whichever
party got the advantage.
In consequence of this information, the citizen of Paris would probably
be able to decide for himself. But if he inquired at a jurist, he would
be informed that Napoleon held the crown not by right of blood, but by
the choice, or rather permission of the people, as an administrator
bound to manage for their best advantage.
Now, every legal obligation may be unloosed in the same way in which it
is formed. If, therefore, Napoleon's government was no longer for the
advantage of France, but, on the contrary, tended plainly to her ruin,
she had a right to rid herself of him, as of a servant unfit for duty,
or as if mariners had taken aboard their vessel a comrade intended to
act as pilot, but who had proved a second Jonas, whom it was necessary
to sacrifice to appease a storm which had come upon them through his
misconduct. Upon such reasoning, certainly neither unwise nor
unpatriotic, the burghers of Paris, as well as all those who had any
thing to lose in the struggle, may be supposed to have acted.
The lower, or rather the lowest class of inhabitants, were not
accessible to the same arguments. They had been bequeathed to Buonaparte
as an heir-loom of the Republic, of which he has been truly called the
heir. His police had industriously maintained connexions amongst them,
and retained in pay and in dependence on the government, their principal
leaders. Names had changed around men of that ignorant condition,
without their feeling their situation much altered. The Glory of France
was to them as inspiring a watchword as the Rights of Man had been; and
their quantum of sous per day, when employed, as they frequently were,
upon the public works, was no bad exchange for Liberty and Equality,
after they had arrived at the discovery of the poor cobbler, who
exclaimed--"Fine Liberty, indeed, that leaves me cobbling shoes as she
found me!" Bulletins and Moniteurs, which trumpeted the victories of
Napoleon, were as animating and entertaining to the inhabitants of the
suburbs as the speeches of republican orators; for in such triumphs of a
nation, the poor have a share as ample as their wealthier neighbours.
The evils of the war were also less felt by the poor. Their very poverty
placed them beneath taxation, and the children, of whom they were
bereaved by the conscription, they must otherwise have parted with, in
all probability, that they might seek subsistence elsewhere. In the
present circumstances the hatred to foreigners, proper to persons of
their class, came to aid their admiration of Buonaparte. In a battle,
they had something to gain and nothing to lose, saving their lives, of
which their national gallantry induced them to take small heed. Had
Napoleon been in Paris, he might have made much use of this force. But
in his absence, the weight of property, prudently directed, naturally
bore down the ebullitions of those who had only brute strength to throw
into the balance, and the overwhelming force of the allied army kept the
suburbs in subjection.
[Sidenote: THE MILITARY--FONTAINBLEAU.]
The disposition of the military was a question of deep importance.
Accustomed to follow Napoleon through every climate, and every
description of danger, unquestionably their attachment to his person was
of the most devoted and enthusiastic kind. But this can only be said in
general of the regimental officers, and the soldiers. The maréchals, and
many of the generals, were tired of this losing war. These, with many
also of the inferior officers, and even of the soldiers, began to
consider the interest of their general, and that of France, as having
become separated from each other. It was from Paris that the changes had
emanated by which the army was governed during every revolutionary
crisis; and they were now required to engage in an undertaking which was
likely to be fatal to that metropolis. To advance upon the allies, and
fight a battle under the capital, was to expose to destruction the city,
whose name to every Frenchman has a sacred and inviolable sound. The
maréchals, in particular, were disgusted with a contest, in which each
of them had been left successively without adequate means of resistance,
to stem, or attempt to stem, a superior force of the enemy; with the
certainty, at the same time, to be held up to public censure in the next
bulletin, in case of failure, though placed in circumstances which
rendered success impossible. These generals were more capable than the
army at large of comprehending the nature of the war in which they were
likely to be engaged, and of appreciating the difficulties of a contest
which was to be maintained in future without money, ammunition, or
supplies, excepting such as should be extorted from that part of the
country over which they held military possession; and this, not only
against all the allies now in France, and the insurgent corps of
Royalists in the west, but also against a second, or reserved line of
three or four hundred thousand Russians, Austrians, and other allied
troops which had not yet crossed the frontier.
Besides, the soldiers with which an attack upon the allied army must
have been undertaken, were reduced to a disastrous condition, by their
late forced marches, and the want of succours and supplies of every
description; the cavalry were in a great measure dismounted; the
regiments not half complete; the horses unshod; the physical condition
of the army bad, and its moral feelings depressed, and unfit for
enterprise. The period seemed to have arrived, beyond which Napoleon
could not maintain his struggle, without destruction to himself, to
Paris, and to France. These sentiments were commonly entertained among
the French general officers. They felt their attachment to Napoleon
placed in opposition to the duty they owed their country by the late
decree of the Senate, and they considered the cause of France as the
most sacred. They had received intelligence from Bournonville of what
had passed at Paris, and considering the large proportion of the capital
which had declared against Buonaparte, and that an assault on Paris must
have occasioned much effusion of French blood, and have become the
signal of civil war, the maréchals and principal general officers agreed
they could not follow Napoleon in such an attack on the city, or against
the allies' line of defence around it, both because, in a military point
of view, they thought the attempt desperate, considering the state of
the army, and because, in a political position, they regarded it as
contrary to their duty as citizens.[36]
In the night betwixt the 2d and 3d of April, Caulaincourt returned from
his mission to Paris. He reported, that the allies persisted in their
determination to entertain no treaty with Buonaparte; but he was of
opinion, that the scheme of a regency by the Empress, as the guardian of
their son, might even yet be granted. Austria, he stated, was favourable
to such an arrangement, and Russia seemed not irreconcilably averse to
it. But the abdication of Buonaparte was a preliminary condition. As
this news circulated among the maréchals, it fixed them in their
resolution not to march against Paris, as, in their opinion, the war
ought to be ended by this personal sacrifice on the part of Napoleon.
[Sidenote: FONTAINBLEAU.]
Buonaparte had not, probably, expected this separation between the
duties of a soldier and of a citizen. On the 4th April, he reviewed a
part of his troops, addressed them on the display of the white colours
in France by some factious persons, reminded them that the
three-coloured cockade was that of victory and honour, and that he
intended to march on the capital, to punish the traitors by whom it had
been vilified.[37] He was answered by shouts of "Paris, Paris!" and had
no reason to fear that the troops would hesitate to follow him in his
effort. The orders were given to advance the imperial quarters from
Fontainbleau to Essonne.
But after the review was over, Berthier, Ney, Macdonald, Caulaincourt,
Oudinot, Bertrand, and other officers of the highest rank, followed the
Emperor into his apartment, and explained to him the sentiments which
they entertained on the subject of the proposed movement, their opinion
that he ought to negotiate on the principle of personal abdication, and
the positive determination which most of them had formed, on no account
to follow him in an attack upon Paris.[38]
There is no doubt that, by an appeal to officers of an inferior rank and
consideration, young Seids, who knew no other virtue than a determined
attachment to their chief, through good or evil, Napoleon might have
filled up, in a military point of view, the vacancy which the
resignation of the maréchals must have created in his list of generals.
But those who urged to him this unpleasant proposal, were the fathers of
the war, the well-known brave and beloved leaders of large armies. Their
names might be individually inferior to his own; but with what feelings
would the public hear that he was deprived of those men, who had been so
long the pride and dread of war? and what were likely to be the
sentiments of the soldiery, upon whom the names of Ney, Macdonald,
Oudinot, and others, operated like a war-trumpet.
With considerable reluctance, and after long debate, Napoleon assumed
the pen, and acquiescing in the reasoning pressed upon him, wrote the
following words, which we translate as literally as possible, as showing
Napoleon's power of dignity of expression, when deep feeling
predominated over his affectation of antithesis and Orientalism of
composition:
"The allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the
sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor
Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend
from the throne, to quit France, and even to relinquish life, for the
good of the country, which is inseparable from the rights of his son,
from those of the Regency in the person of the Empress, and from the
maintenance of the laws of the empire. Done at our Palace of
Fontainbleau, 4th April, 1814."
Caulaincourt and Ney were appointed to be bearers of this important
document, and commissioners to negotiate with the allies, concerning the
terms of accommodation to which it might be supposed to lead.
Caulaincourt was the personal representative of Napoleon; and Ney, who
had all along been zealous for the abdication, was a plenipotentiary
proposed by the rest of the maréchals. Napoleon, it is said, wished to
add Marmont; but he was absent with the troops quartered at Essonne,
who, having been withdrawn in consequence of the treaty of Paris, were
disposed of in that position. Macdonald was suggested as the third
plenipotentiary, as an officer whose high character best qualified him
to represent the army. Napoleon hesitated; for though he had employed
Macdonald's talents on the most important occasions, he knew that the
maréchal disliked, upon principle, the arbitrary character of his
government; and they had never stood to each other in any intimate or
confidential relation. He consulted his minister, Maret. "Send the Duke
of Tarentum," replied the minister. "He is too much a man of honour not
to discharge, with religious fidelity, any trust which he undertakes."
Marshal Macdonald's name was added to the commission accordingly.[39]
When the terms were in the act of being adjusted, the maréchals desired
to know upon what stipulations they were to insist on Napoleon's
personal behalf. "Upon none,"--said Buonaparte. "Do what you can to
obtain the best terms for France: for myself, I ask nothing." They were
instructed particularly to obtain an armistice until the treaty should
be adjusted. Through the whole scene Buonaparte conducted himself with
firmness, but he gave way to a natural emotion when he had finally
signed the abdication. He threw himself on a sofa, hid his face for a
few minutes, and then looking up, with that smile of persuasion which he
had so often found irresistible, he implored his brethren of the field
to annul the resolutions they had adopted, to destroy the papers, and
follow him yet again to the contest. "Let us march," he said; "let us
take the field once more! We are sure to beat them, and to have peace on
our own terms."[40] The moment would have been invaluable to a
historical painter. The maréchals were deeply affected, but could not
give way. They renewed their arguments on the wretched state of the
army--on the reluctance with which the soldiers would move against the
Senate--on the certainty of a destructive civil war--and on the
probability that Paris would be destroyed. He acquiesced once more in
their reasoning, and permitted them to depart on their embassy.[41]
FOOTNOTES:
[32] According to Lord Burghersh, (Operations, p. 249,) Caulaincourt saw
the Emperor Alexander at his headquarters, _before_ he entered
Paris.--ED. (1842.)
[33] De Pradt, Précis Hist. de la Restauration, p. 54.
[34] Dated Paris, March 31, three o'clock in the afternoon. "After some
discussion, the Emperor of Russia agreed not to treat with Napoleon,
and, at the suggestion of Abbé Louis, nor with any of his family. De
Pradt told me he retired into a corner of the apartment, with Roux
Laborie, to whom he dictated the Emperor's declaration, which was
hastily written with a pencil, and shown to Alexander, who approved of
it. Michaud, who was in waiting, caused it immediately to be printed,
putting, under the name of the Emperor, '_Michaud, Imprimeur du Roi_,'
and two hours afterwards it was stuck up in Paris. It was read by the
people with great eagerness, and I saw many of them copying
it."--_Memorable Events_, p. 128.
[35] On the 3d of April, the _Moniteur_, in which these documents are
given, was declared, by the provisional government, the only official
journal.
[36] "Napoleon reached Fontainbleau at six in the morning of the 31st
March. The large rooms of the castle were shut up, and he repaired to
his little apartment on the first storey, parallel with the gallery of
Francis I. There he shut himself up for the remainder of the day. Maret
was the only one of his ministers who was with him. In the course of
that evening, and the following morning, arrived the heads of the
columns which Napoleon had brought from Champagne, and the advanced
guard of the troops from Paris. These wrecks of the army assembled round
Fontainbleau. Moncey, who commanded the national guard of Paris,
Lafebvre, Ney, Macdonald, Oudinot, Berthier, Mortier, and Marmont,
arrived at Napoleon's headquarters; so that he still had an army at his
disposal."--BARON FAIN, p. 355.
"Marmont arrived at Fontainbleau, at three in the morning of the 1st of
April, and gave Napoleon a detailed account of what had passed at Paris.
The maréchal told me he appeared undetermined whether to retire on the
banks of the Loire, or give battle to the allies near Paris. In the
afternoon he went to inspect the position of Marmont's army at Essonne,
with which he appeared to be satisfied, and determined to remain there
and manœuvre, with a view to disengage Paris and give battle. With the
greatest coolness he formed plans for the execution of these objects;
but, while thus employed, the officers, whom the maréchal had left at
Paris to deliver up that city to the allies, arrived, and informed them
of the events of the day. Napoleon, hearing this, became furious: He
raved about punishing the rebellious city, and giving it up to pillage.
With this resolution he separated from Marmont, and returned to
Fontainbleau."--_Memorable Events_, p. 201.
[37] "Soldiers! the enemy has stolen three marches upon us, and has made
himself master of Paris. He must be driven out of it. Unworthy
Frenchmen, emigrants, whom we had pardoned, have adopted the white
cockade, and have joined our enemies. Wretches! they shall receive the
reward of this new crime. Let us swear to conquer or to die, and to
cause to be respected that tri-coloured cockade, which, during twenty
years, has found us in the paths of glory and of honour."--LORD
BURGHERSH, _Observations, &c._, p. 274.
[38] "Ney produced the _Moniteur_, containing the decree of forfeiture,
and advised him to acquiesce and abdicate. Napoleon feigned to read,
turned pale, and appeared much agitated; but did not shed tears, as the
newspapers reported. He seemed not to know in what manner to act. He
then asked, 'Que voulez vous?' Ney answered, 'Il n'y a que l'abdication
qui puisse vous tirer de là.' During this conference, Lefebvre came in;
and upon Napoleon expressing astonishment at what had been announced to
him, said, in his blunt manner, 'You see what has resulted from not
listening to the advice of your friends to make peace: you remember the
communication I made to you lately, therefore you may think yourself
well off that affairs have terminated as they have.'"--_Memorable
Events_, p. 206.
[39] Baron Fain, p. 373.
[40] "He threw himself on a small yellow sofa, placed near the window,
and striking his thigh with a sort of convulsive action, exclaimed, 'No,
gentlemen, no! No regency! With my guard and Marmont's corps, I shall be
in Paris to-morrow.'"--BOURRIENNE, tom. i., p. 87.--On the day of the
entrance of the allies into Paris, Bourrienne, Napoleon's ex-private
secretary, was appointed to the important office of Postmaster-General;
a situation from which he was dismissed at the end of three weeks.
[41] "Immediately after their departure, Napoleon despatched a courier
to the Empress, from whom he had received letters, dated Vendome. He
authorised her to despatch to her father, the Duke of Cadore
(Champagny,) to solicit his intercession in favour of herself and her
son. Overpowered by the events of the day, he shut himself up in his
chamber."--BARON FAIN, p. 374.
CHAPTER LXXX.
_Victor, and other Maréchals give in their adhesion to the
Provisional Government--Marmont enters into a separate Convention;
but assists at the Conferences held at Paris, leaving Souham second
in command of his Army--The Commanders have an interview with the
Emperor Alexander--Souham enters with his Army, into the lines of
the Allies; in consequence, the Allied Sovereigns insist upon the
unconditional Submission of Napoleon--His reluctant
acquiescence--The Terms granted to him--Disapprobation of Lord
Castlereagh--General Desertion of Napoleon--Death of
Josephine--Singular Statement made by Baron Fain, Napoleon's
Secretary, of the Emperor's attempt to commit Suicide--After this he
becomes more resigned--Leaves Fontainbleau, 28th April._
The plenipotentiaries of Napoleon had been directed to confer with
Marmont at Essonne, in their road to the capital. They did so, and
obtained information there, which rendered their negotiation more
pressing. Several of the generals who had not been at Fontainbleau, and
had not had an opportunity of acting in conjunction with the military
council which assembled there, had viewed the act of the Senate, adhered
to by the other public bodies, as decisively closing the reign of
Buonaparte, or as indicating the commencement of a civil war. Most of
them were of opinion, that the interest of an individual, whose talents
had been as dangerous to France as the virtues of Cæsar had been to
Rome, ought not to be weighed against the welfare of the capital and the
whole nation. Victor, Duke of Belluno, had upon these principles given
in his personal adhesion to the Provisional Government, and his example
was followed by many others.
[Sidenote: MARMONT'S CONVENTION.]
But the most important proselyte to the royal cause was the Maréchal
Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, who, lying at Essonne with ten or twelve
thousand men, formed the advance of the French army. Conceiving himself
to have the liberty of other Frenchmen to attend at this crisis to the
weal of France, rather than to the interest of Napoleon alone, and with
the purpose of saving France from the joint evils of a civil and
domestic war, he made use of the position in which he was placed, to
give a weight to his opinion, which that of no other individual could
have possessed at the moment. Maréchal Marmont, after negotiation with
the Provisional Government on the one hand, and Prince Schwartzenberg on
the other, had entered into a convention on his own account, and that of
his corps d'armée, by which he agreed to march the division which he
commanded within the lines of cantonment held by the allies, and thus
renounced all idea of further prosecuting the war. On the other hand,
the maréchal stipulated for the freedom and honourable usage of
Napoleon's person, should he fall into the hands of the allies. He
obtained also a guarantee, that his corps d'armée should be permitted to
retreat into Normandy. This convention was signed at Chevilly, upon 3d
April.[42]
This step has been considered as a defection on the part of Marmont;[43]
but why is the choice of a side, betwixt the Provisional Government and
the Emperor, more a desertion in that general than in any other of the
maréchals or authorities who presently after took the very same step?
And if the Duke of Ragusa by that means put further bloodshed out of
question, ought it not to be matter of rejoicing (to borrow an
expression of Talleyrand's on a similar occasion) that the maréchal's
watch went a few minutes faster than those of his colleagues?
When Macdonald and Ney communicated to Marmont that they were bearers of
Napoleon's abdication, and that he was joined with them in commission,
that maréchal asked why he had not been summoned to attend with the
others at Fontainbleau, and mentioned the convention which he had
entered into, as acting for himself.[44] The Duke of Tarentum
expostulated with him on the disadvantage which must arise from any
disunion on the part of the principal officers of the army. Respecting
the council at Fontainbleau, he stated it had been convened under
circumstances of such sudden emergency, that there was no time to summon
any other than those maréchals who were close at hand, lest Napoleon had
in the meanwhile moved forward the army. The commissioners entreated
Marmont to suspend the execution of the separate convention, and to come
with them, to assist at the conferences to be held at Paris. He
consented, and mounted into Maréchal Ney's carriage, leaving General
Souham, who, with all the other generals of his division, two excepted,
were privy to the convention, in command of his corps d'armée, which he
gave orders should remain stationary.
When the maréchals arrived in Paris, they found the popular tide had set
strongly in favour of the Bourbons; their emblems were everywhere
adopted; and the streets resounded with _Vive le Roi!_ The populace
seemed as enthusiastic in their favour as they had been indifferent a
few days before. All boded an unfavourable termination for their
mission, so far as respected the proposed regency.
The names and characters of the commissioners instantly obtained their
introduction to the Emperor Alexander, who received them with his
natural courtesy. "On the general subject of their mission," he said,
"he could not treat but in concert with his allies." But he enlarged on
the subject of Napoleon personally. "He was my friend," he said, "I
loved and honoured him. His ambition forced me into a dreadful war, in
which my capital was burnt, and the greatest evils inflicted on my
dominions. But he is unfortunate, and these wrongs are forgotten. Have
you nothing to propose on his personal account? I will be his willing
advocate." The maréchals replied, that Napoleon had made no conditions
for himself whatever. The Emperor would hardly believe this until they
showed him their instructions, which entirely related to public affairs.
The Emperor then asked if they would hear a proposal from him. They
replied with suitable respect and gratitude. He then mentioned the plan,
which was afterwards adopted, that Buonaparte should retain the imperial
title over a small territory, with an ample revenue, guards, and other
emblems of dignity. "The place," continued the Emperor of Russia, "may
be Elba, or some other island." With this annunciation the commissioners
of Buonaparte were dismissed for the evening.
Maréchal Marmont had done all in his power to stop the military movement
which he had undertaken to execute, thinking it better, doubtless, to
move hand in hand with his brethren, than to act singly in a matter of
such responsibility; but accident precipitated what he desired to delay.
Napoleon had summoned to his presence Count Souham, who commanded the
division at Essonne in Marmont's absence. No reason was given for this
command, nor could any thing be extracted from the messenger, which
indicated the purpose of the order. Souham was therefore induced to
suspect that Napoleon had gained intelligence of the Convention of
Chevilly. Under this apprehension, he called the other generals who were
in the secret to a midnight council, in which it was determined to
execute the convention instantly, by passing over with the troops within
the lines of the allies, without awaiting any farther orders from
Maréchal Marmont. The division was put in movement upon the 5th of
April, about five o'clock, and marched for some time with much
steadiness, the movement being, as they supposed, designed for a flank
attack on the position of the allies, but when they perceived that their
progress was watched, without being interrupted, by a column of Bavarian
troops,[45] they began to suspect the real purpose. When this became
known, a kind of mutiny took place, and some Polish lancers broke off
from the main body, and rode back to Fontainbleau; but the instinct of
discipline prevailed, and the officers were able to bring the soldiery
into their new quarters at Versailles. They were not, however,
reconciled to the measure in which they had been made partakers, and in
a few days afterwards broke out into an actual mutiny, which was not
appeased without considerable difficulty.[46]
[Sidenote: CONFERENCES AT PARIS.]
Meanwhile, the commissioners of Buonaparte were admitted to a conference
with the allied sovereigns and ministers in full council, but which, it
may be conjectured, was indulged to them more as a form, that the allies
might treat with due respect the representatives of the French army,
than with any purpose on the part of the sovereigns of altering the plan
to which they had pledged themselves by a proclamation, upon the faith
of which thousands had already acted. However, the question, whether to
adopt the projected regency, or the restoration of the Bourbons, as a
basis of agreement, was announced as a subject of consideration to the
meeting. The maréchals pleaded the cause of the Regency. The Generals
Bournonville and Dessolles, were heard in reply to the commissioners
from Fontainbleau, when, ere the debate had terminated, news arrived of
the march of Marmont's division to Versailles. The commissioners were
astounded with this unexpected intelligence; and the Emperor took the
opportunity to determine, that the allies would not treat with
Buonaparte save on the footing of unconditional abdication. With this
answer, mitigated with the offer of an independent principality for
their ancient commander, the maréchals returned to Fontainbleau, while
the Senate busied themselves to arrange the plan of a free constitution,
under which the Bourbons were to be called to the throne.
Napoleon, in the retirement of Fontainbleau, mused on the future with
little hope of advantage from the mission of the maréchals. He judged
that the sovereigns, if they listened to the proposal of a regency,
would exact the most formidable guarantees against his own interference
with the government; and that under his wife, Maria Louisa, who had no
talent for public business, France would probably be managed by an
Austrian committee. He again thought of trying the chance of war, and
might probably have settled on the purpose most congenial to his nature,
had not Colonel Gourgaud brought him the news, that the division of
Marmont had passed into the enemy's cantonments on the morning of the
5th April. "The ungrateful man!" he said, "But he is more to be pitied
than I am."[47] He ought to have been contented with this reflection,
for which, even if unjust to the maréchal, every one must have had
sympathy and excuse. But the next day he published a sort of appeal to
the army on the solemnity of a military engagement, as more sacred than
the duty of a patriot to his country; which he might more gracefully
have abstained from, since all knew already to what height he carried
the sentiments of arbitrary power.
When the maréchals returned, he listened to the news of the failure of
their negotiation, as a termination which he had expected. But to their
surprise, recollecting his disinterested behaviour when they parted, he
almost instantly demanded what provision had been made for him
personally, and how he was to be disposed of? They informed him that it
was proposed he should reside as an independent sovereign, "in Elba, or
somewhere else." Napoleon paused for a moment. "Somewhere else!" he
exclaimed. "That must be Corsica. No, no.--I will have nothing to do
with Corsica.[48]--Elba? Who knows any thing of Elba! Seek out some
officer who is acquainted with Elba. Look out what books or charts can
inform us about Elba."
In a moment he was as deeply interested in the position and capabilities
of this little islet, as if he had never been Emperor of France, nay,
almost of the world. But Buonaparte's nature was egotistical. He well
knew how little it would become an Emperor resigning his crown, to be
stipulating for his future course of life; and had reason to conclude,
that by playing his part with magnanimity he might best excite a
corresponding liberality in those with whom he treated. But when the die
was cast, when his fate seemed fixed, he examined with minuteness what
he must afterwards consider as his sole fortune. To turn his thoughts
from France to Elba, was like the elephant, which can transport
artillery, applying his trunk to gather pins. But Napoleon could do both
easily, because he regarded these two objects not as they differed from
each other, but as they belonged, or did not belong, to himself.
[Sidenote: FINAL ACT OF ABDICATION.]
After a night's consideration, the fallen Chief took his resolution, and
despatched Caulaincourt and Macdonald once more to Paris, to treat with
the allies upon the footing of an unconditional abdication of the
empire. The document was couched in these words:--
"The allied powers having proclaimed that the Emperor was the sole
obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor,
faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces for himself and his
heirs the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal
sacrifice, not even that of life, which he is not ready to make to the
interests of France."
Notwithstanding his having adopted this course, Napoleon, until the
final adjustment of the treaty, continued to nourish thoughts of
breaking it off. He formed plans for carrying on the war beyond the
Loire--for marching to join Augereau--for penetrating into Italy, and
uniting with Prince Eugene. At one time he was very near again summoning
his troops to arms, in consequence of a report too hastily transmitted
by a general much attached to him (General Alix, we believe,) stating
that the Emperor of Austria was displeased at the extremities to which
they urged his son-in-law, and was resolved to support him. On this
report, which proved afterwards totally unfounded, Napoleon required the
maréchals to give him back his letter of abdication. But the deed having
been formally executed, and duly registered and delivered, the maréchals
held themselves bound to retain it in their own hands, and to act upon
it as the only means of saving France at this dreadful crisis.
Buonaparte reviewed his Old Guard in the courtyard of the castle; for
their numbers were so diminished that there was space for them in that
narrow circuit. Their zealous acclamations gratified his ears as much as
ever; but when he looked on their diminished ranks, his heart failed; he
retired into the palace, and summoned Oudinot before him. "May I depend
on the adhesion of the troops?" he said--Oudinot replied in the
negative, and reminded Napoleon that he had abdicated.--"Ay, but under
conditions," said Napoleon.--"Soldiers do not understand conditions,"
said the maréchal: "they look upon your power as terminated."--"Then on
that side all is over," said Napoleon; "let us wait the news from
Paris."
[Sidenote: TREATY OF FONTAINBLEAU.]
Macdonald, Caulaincourt, and Ney, soon afterwards arrived at
Fontainbleau, with the treaty which they had concluded on the basis
already announced by the Emperor of Russia, who had taken the principal
share in drawing it up. Under his sanction the commissioners had
obtained such terms as never before were granted to a dethroned monarch,
and which have little chance to be conceded to such a one in future,
while the portentous consequences are preserved by history. By these
conditions, Buonaparte was to remain Emperor, but his sway was to be
limited to the island of Elba, in the Mediterranean, in extent twenty
leagues, and containing about twelve thousand inhabitants. He was to be
recognised as one of the crowned heads of Europe--was to be allowed
body-guards, and a navy on a scale suitable to the limits of his
dominions; and, to maintain this state, a revenue of six millions of
francs, over and above the revenues of the isle of Elba, were settled on
him. Two millions and a half were also assigned in pensions to his
brothers, Josephine, and the other members of his family--a revenue more
splendid than ever King of England had at his personal disposal. It was
well argued, that if Buonaparte deserved such advantageous terms of
retirement, it was injustice to dethrone him. In other points the terms
of this treaty seemed as irreconcilable with sound policy as they are
with all former precedents. The name, dignity, military authority, and
absolute power of an Emperor, conferred on the potentate of such
Liliputian domains, were ludicrous, if it was supposed that Napoleon
would remain quiet in his retreat, and hazardous if he should seek the
means of again agitating Europe.
It was no compliment to Buonaparte's taste to invest him with the poor
shadow of his former fortune, since for him the most honourable
retirement would have been one which united privacy with safety and
competence, not that which maintained a vain parade around him, as if in
mockery of what he had formerly been. But time fatally showed, what many
augured from the beginning, that so soon as his spirit should soar
beyond the narrow circle into which it had been conjured, the imperial
title and authority, the assistance of devoted body-guards and
experienced counsellors, formed a stake with which, however small, the
venturous gamester might again enter upon the hazardous game of playing
for the kingdoms he had lost. The situation of Elba, too, as the seat of
his new sovereignty, so near to Italy, and so little removed from
France, seemed calculated on purpose to favour his resurrection at some
future period as a political character.
The other stipulations of this extraordinary treaty divided a portion of
revenue secured to Napoleon among the members of his family. The most
rational was that which settled upon Maria Louisa and her son the
duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, in full sovereignty. Except
this, all the other stipulations were to be made good at the expense of
France, whose Provisional Government were never consulted upon the terms
granted.[49]
It was not till the bad effects of this singular treaty had been
experienced, that men inquired why and on what principle it was first
conceded. A great personage has been mentioned as its original author.
Possessed of many good and highly honourable qualities, and a steady and
most important member of the great European confederacy, it is doing the
memory of the Emperor Alexander no injury to suppose, that he remembered
his education under his French tutor La Harpe, and was not altogether
free from its effects. With these there always mingles that sort of
showy sensibility which delights in making theatrical scenes out of acts
of beneficence, and enjoying in full draughts the popular applause which
they are calculated to excite. The contagious air of Paris--the
shouts--the flattery--the success to a point hitherto unhoped for--the
wish to drown unkindness of every sort, and to spread a feast from which
no one should rise discontented--the desire to sum up all in one word,
to show MAGNANIMITY in the hour of success, seems to have laid
Alexander's heart more open than the rules of wisdom or of prudence
ought to have permitted. It is generous to give, and more generous to
pardon; but to bestow favours and forgiveness at the same moment, to
secure the future fortune of a rival who lies prostrate at his feet, to
hear thanks and compliments on every hand, and from the mouths even of
the vanquished, is the most fascinating triumph of a victorious
sovereign. It is only the consequences which teach him how thriftless
and unprofitable a prodigality of beneficence often proves, and that in
the attempt so to conduct great national measures that they shall please
and satisfy every one, he must necessarily encroach on the rules both
of justice and wisdom, and may occasion, by a thoughtless indulgence of
romantic sensibility, new trains of misfortune to the whole civilized
world. The other active parties in the treaty were the King of Prussia,
who had no motive to scan with peculiar scrutiny a treaty planned by his
ally the Emperor Alexander, and the Emperor of Austria, who could not in
delicacy object to stipulations in favour of his son-in-law.
The maréchals, on the other hand, gladly received what probably they
never would have stipulated. They were aware that the army would be
conciliated with every mark of respect, however incongruous, which could
be paid to their late Emperor, and perhaps knew Buonaparte so well as to
believe that he might be gratified by preserving the external marks of
imperial honour, though upon so limited a scale. There was one power
whose representative foresaw the evils which such a treaty might
occasion, and remonstrated against them. But the evil was done, and the
particulars of the treaty adjusted, before Lord Castlereagh came to
Paris. Finding that the Emperor of Russia had acted for the best, in the
name of the other allies, the English minister refrained from risking
the peace which had been made in such urgent circumstances, by insisting
upon his objections. He refused, however, on the part of his government,
to become a party to the treaty farther than by acceding to it so far as
the territorial arrangements were concerned; but he particularly
declined to acknowledge, on the part of England, the title of Emperor,
which the treaty conferred on Napoleon.[50]
Yet when we have expressed with freedom all the objections to which the
treaty of Fontainbleau seems liable, it must be owned, that the allied
sovereigns showed policy in obtaining an accommodation on almost any
terms, rather than renewing the war, by driving Napoleon to despair, and
inducing the maréchals, from a sense of honour, again to unite
themselves with his cause.
When the treaty was read over to Napoleon, he made a last appeal to his
maréchals, inviting them to follow him to the Loire or to the Alps,
where they would avoid what he felt an ignominious composition. But he
was answered by a general silence. The generals whom he addressed, knew
but too well that any efforts which he could make, must be rather in the
character of a roving chieftain, supporting his condottieri by the
plunder of the country, and that country their own, than that of a
warlike monarch, waging war for a specific purpose, and at the head of a
regular army. Napoleon saw their determination in their looks, and
dismissed the council, promising an answer on an early day, but in the
meantime declining to ratify the treaty, and demanding back his
abdication from Caulaincourt; a request which that minister again
declined to comply with.
Misfortunes were now accumulating so fast around Napoleon, that they
seemed of force sufficient to break the most stubborn spirit.
[Sidenote: GENERAL DESERTION.]
Gradually the troops of the allies had spread as far as the banks of the
Loire. Fontainbleau was surrounded by their detachments; on every side
the French officers, as well as soldiers, were leaving his service; he
had no longer the power of departing from the palace in safety.
Paris, so late the capital in which his will was law, and where to have
uttered a word in his disparagement would have been thought worse than
blasphemy, was become the scene of his rival's triumph and his own
disgrace. The shouts which used to wait on the Emperor, were now
welcoming to the Tuileries Monsieur, the brother of the restored King,
who came in character of Lieutenant-general of the kingdom;--the
presses, which had so long laboured in disseminating the praises of the
Emperor, were now exerting all their art and malice in exposing his real
faults, and imputing to him such as had no existence. He was in the
condition of the huntsman who was devoured by his own hounds.
It was yet more affecting to see courtiers, dependents, and even
domestics, who had lived in his smiles, dropping off under different
pretexts to give in their adhesion to the Bourbons, and provide for
their own fortune in the new world which had commenced at Paris. It is
perhaps in such moments, that human nature is seen in its very worst
point of view; since the basest and most selfish points of the
character, which, in the train of ordinary life, may never be awakened
into existence, show themselves, and become the ruling principle, in
such revolutions. Men are then in the condition of well-bred and
decorous persons, transferred from an ordinary place of meeting to the
whirlpool of a crowd, in which they soon demean themselves with all the
selfish desire of their own safety or convenience, and all the total
disregard for that of others, which the conscious habits of politeness
have suppressed but not eradicated.
Friends and retainers dropt from the unfortunate Napoleon, like leaves
from the fading tree; and those whom shame or commiseration yet detained
near his person, waited but some decent pretexts, like a rising breath
of wind, to sweep them also away.
The defection included all ranks, from Berthier, who shared his bosom
councils, and seldom was absent from his side, to the Mameluke Roustan,
who slept across the door of his apartment, and acted as a body guard.
It wo
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